“If the police at the inquest on Wednesday night succeed in establishing the link required to complete the chain of circumstantial evidence wound around the person they suspect of slaying Ethel Kinrade in her father’s house on Herkimer street on the afternoon of February 25, Hamilton’s most sensational murder mystery may be solved within two days.”
Hamilton Times. March 09, 1909.
The day before the long-awaited inquest into the shooting death of Ethel Kinrade, there were rumors that the police had a strong theory and some proof as to what happened in the Herkimer street home of the Kinrade Family:
“While the authorities maintain silence and refuse to deny or affirm reports of an arrest in the case this week, everything points to developments immediately after the inquest.
“The Coroner’s inquest tomorrow night promises to be one of the most dramatic investigations ever held within the walls of the dingy old court room. There is a feeling that the police are holding back something that they have evidence of an entirely new nature, which will be sprung as a surprise. This was partly confirmed today by Chief of Police Smith, who assured a Times reporter that the police had evidence in the case of which the public knew nothing, and which was being saved up to tomorrow night’s investigation.
1 “New Features in the Kinrade Case”
Hamilton Times. March 9, 1909.
During the morning of March 9, Hamilton Police Detectives Coulter and Bleakley made yet another trip to Kinrade house. They were accompanied by a plumber, with a full set of tools, presumably to search for a weapon. Reporters were barred.
Another new feature about how the events of the murder evolved arose when Charles Hossack, 148 Kerkimer street claimed that he saw Ethel was returning to her home about 2 p.m. This seemed to refute Florence Kinrade’s story that she and her sister were preparing to go out when an intruder burst through the front door.
Also another witness statement to police seemed to call into question the state of mind of the murdered woman’s sister :
“The police are investigating that Florence Kinrade was seen out walking with Montrose Wright two days after the shooting. The police were under the impression that Miss Kinrade was suffering so from hysteria at this time that she could not leave the house.”1
1 Hamilton Times. March 9, 1909
There was a clamour for admittance to watch the inquest at the Police Court room within Police Station #3:
“Well-known citizens have been pulling wires to be admitted to the inquest, but Coroner McNichol has decided that the doors will be barred against all but those who have business there. This is made necessary because the accommodation in the court room is limited. The fifteen jurors, thirty witnesses, as many officials, and a staff of reporters from local and outside papers, will make a crowd of nearly a hundred – enough to fill the court room.
Report confirmed that George Tate Blackstock, K.C., “regarded as one of the shrewdest criminal lawyers in Canada” would conduct the examination of the witnesses ‘:
Blackstock had been ’’appointed by the Government, and with the concurrence of local Crown Attorney Washington:
“Mr. Washington was very glad to be relieved of the onerous duties and Mr. Blackstock is a man of the very widest experience and ability. This move must not be taken in any sense for a reflection on the capacity of Mr. Washington, a most able man. He was very glad indeed to have Mr. Blackstock relieve him.”1
1 Hamilton Times. March 9, 1909.
The schedule of first session of the Kinrade inquest include its beginning with a report from the doctors who had examined Ethel Kinrade’s body after it had been transported to the city morgue:
“The post-mortem report , signed by Doctors Balfe and Edgar, will be the first evidence. This will, it is said, effectively dispose of the tramp theory, and pave the way for the cross-examination of other witnesses on points which the police wish to have cleared up.’ 1
It was rumoured that the doctors had confirmed that there was a period of from ten to fifteen minutes between the firing of the first and second series of shots:
“Would any tramp remain in the room with the dying girl for such a space of time, them, thinking the victim might recover, reload the revolver and begin firing into the body again.? The police don’t think so. The police never warmed up to the tramp theory.
“Florence Kinrade, in a hysterical condition, told the officers three different stories while she was in Hamilton. The first two supported the tramp theory. The third shattered it. She declared that it was no tramp but a fairly well-dressed man who did the shooting.”1
Another theory was that an insane man who escaped from the Asylum on the mountain was responsible for the shooting:
“The police are convinced now that the shooting was not done by an insane man or even a person crazy with passion. It was a cool, deliberate murder, as the medical evidence would appear to indicate, done by a person who stood over her prostrate body , after it had fallen to the floor, watching her life ebb away, and who, not satisfied that she was mortally wounded. Reloaded the revolver and fifteen minutes or so after the first set of shots, fired three more through the left breast, one piercing the heart.
“The theory, that one the police guard so jealously, comes nearer home. Detective Miller has centered all his work in the vicinity of Hamilton. The frequent visits of the officers to the Kinrade home, the frequent searches of the vicinity for the revolver with which the crime was committed, and the efforts of the authorities to show that the crime was not committed just before 4 o’clock, but earlier,”1
The witness to take the stand after the medical evidence had been submitted was scheduled to be the dead woman’s younger sister:
“It is likely that Florence Kinrade, who is regarded as the chief witness, will go on the stand immediately after the doctors and tell her story. Although she has been examined by two medical experts, who have expressed the opinion that she is in fit condition, physically and mentally, to testify, it is thought doubtful if she will be able to go through the ordeal tomorrow night without breaking down.”
Flossie Kinrade was the object of widespread conjecture that she had not been truthful in her statements to the police as to the events that led to the death of her sister.
Florence did have her defenders however, including one prominent but unidentified city physician. He had an possible explanation on the matter of the lapse of time between the firing of the bullets into the head and breast of Ethel “:
‘Is it possible that the girl fainted after the first shots were fired?’
“He added that in the stress of the few moments after the first shots were fired, the sister of the dead girl might have run into the room and done any one of half a dozen peculiar and inexplicable things, then fainted. ‘It is equally possible that the next shots fired would awaken the girl from her swoon,’ he said, ‘after recovering she might not remember what she had done before.
“ ‘The girl is laboring under a terrible mental strain,’ said the physician, ‘and it is a wonder she has borne up under the police enquiry and has told as straight a story as the officers say they got from her.’1
The Times reported on how a ‘sleuth’ or private detective had been keeping a close watch on the Kinrade family while they were at the Arlington Hotel in Toronto. Earl Kinrade was interviewed about being constantly under observation :
“What is the sense of having a detective in the hotel dragging our heels all the time? The other morning I was reading a newspaper, when I became aware that some one’s eyes were fixed intently on me; I looked up suddenly and a man was seated just opposite, looking as if he were trying to read my thoughts. It gave me a start. The same thing happened half an hour after.
“ ‘I do not think we will ever live in the old house. I do not think mother or my sisters would ever again have any peace within those four walls. The family will live in Hamilton, I suppose, but in another part of the city. We will probably sell the old house we have lived in for many years.
“The new facts, or so-called facts, that there were eight bullets fired, make the murder more mysterious than ever. I can’t account for it, but I would like to have a fair chance at the cur that held that gun.’1
(To Be Continued)
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