![]() STORIES:
![]() LAWLESSNESS AT LAWTEY June 23, 1894 Lawtey is a settlement that began to take shape in the mid-1800s, with the arrival of the Florida Railroad in the 1850s. A railroad depot was established there, and the town began to develop as a center for trade and commerce. The city’s name, “Lawtey,” is said to have been derived from a local landowner or a variation of a family name. In June, 1894, Dr. Gustavus Drolshagen and his wife Hedwig who lived about a mile east of Lawtey, Florida were murdered in their sleep. Witnesses at the scene said that Dr. Drolshagen was lying on the right side of the bed covered up with bedclothes. The woman was lying by his side, but was not under the bedclothes and her nightrobe was pulled up above her waist. The inference was that she had been raped, even though it was not clearly state. The body showed she had struggled after being shot in the right eye, but she had been struck over the head with what was probably the butt of a pistol. ![]() Mule tracks were found at his gate and the tracks matched the description of a small mule stolen from Mr. J.G. Alvarez's farm about 6 miles west of Lawtey that same night. A few days later they were buried in the Lawtey Cemetery. In the 1885 census Drolshagen was listed as being 70 years old, and his wife was 32 years old. The couple had no family in the area and lived by themselves. Drolshagen had moved to Lawtey from Norwalk, Ohio, 14 years before. There was a story told that he had once been a Catholic priest and when he emigrated from Germany he brought, Louise Clausmann (Glazmann), who was said to have been a nun. They lived together for 2 years and then Hedwig, her sister, came from Germany to visit. Shortly thereafter Hedwig and Drolshagen married. Louise it was said died shortly after the marriage. Whether this was true or not is unknown. ![]() There seem to be several motives for their murder, the first being that while living in Lawtey the Drolshagens ran a general merchandise business. They sold out the business on June 1st, only 3 weeks before they were killed, and it was believed they had a good deal of money from the transaction. Despite living in a sparsely populated area, where the residents were familiar with each, and made note of strangers, over a month after the crime, there were no arrests and the county commissioners offered a reward of $200. It wasn't until January, 1896 that resolution seemed to be at hand. At the center of what appeared to be a murder conspiracy was George Muller. He was arrested and taken to the prison at Starke. In the meantime, a young German named Max Boch was brought back from New York by Sheriff Johns and District Attorney Hartridge as the principal in the crime. When Muller was arrested at his home in Tampa they read the warrant to him, and Miller said, "Never mind, I know what you want and I'll go along with you." He said to the officer that he associated in Jacksonville with Max Boch as a friend and that he only went with him to advise him, and keep him from doing wrong, as he knew Max was a wild fellow. Boch was Drolshagen's nephew. ![]() Boch’s version was different. He said that Muller worked in a Jacksonville stable, where he hired a horse and buggy and drove the hired murderers out to Lawtey after nightfall. His payoff for the deed was supposed to be $300. Muller laid his problems on the doorstep of Henry Vesper. It seemed that Muller had once worked for Henry Vesper. Vesper proposed to Muller to kill Drolshagen and take his money. Muller refused. Mrs. Muller said that Vesper dragged her husband into the conspiracy because he still him money from unpaid wages. Mrs. Miller said that while living in Jacksonville they worked in a restaurant on Bay and Hogan Streets, and that Max Boch stayed with them. She did confirm to the police that Boch who had stopped paying them for boarding, had come into money after the murder, but never settled with them for the time he lived with them for free. Henry Vesper was arrested in 1895 on a charge of burglary; however he was cleared of the charge. He like George Muller moved to Tampa. Shortly after the crime, Max Boch proved he was the murdered man's nephew and his only heir. After filing a claim on his uncle’s property which was valued at $25,000, he left to Brooklyn where he married Maria La Fianza, a young widow who he had met in Jacksonville. They moved to 105 Hamburg Ave Brooklyn, and he worked as a druggist. He was arrested on January 1, based on a warrant sworn out by the administrator of Drolshagen's estate, Edward Todd. The allegations were that Maxmillian Boch hired George Miller to kill his uncle and his wife, after he found out his uncle had disinherited him. Besides the murder they were to there find and destroy the latest will. The sum of $900 in cash were also missing from the couple’s home. Muller who was arrested on January 3, was released on the 21st, after being charged with complicity in the Drolshagen murder. He returned to Tampa where he was running a tent restaurant on the old opera house site on Franklin Street. While living in Jacksonville, Muller worked on the night shift at Otis' a well known lunch room, and supposedly this was how he established his alibi, since Mr. Otis verified he was working at the restaurant the night of the crime. Max Boch was also released at this time. A queer coincidence in connection to the timing on Boch's arrest, was the signing of a decree in a civil suit conveying the property left by the murdered man. The decree involved the case of Sophia Glauzmann vs. Max Boch and Nicholas Boch in which Glauzmann, a sister of the murdered woman was entitled to a half interest in coparcenary with the defendant to the property found in Bradford, Clay and Alachua counties. Then in an unexpected turn on February 5, 1896, 3 weeks after Muller was released, Frank E. Hughes a well-known Gainesville lawyer who defended him committed suicide. His friends were astonished and everyone remembered his recent involvement in defending George Muller. It was said that soon after his return to Gainesville he received a telegram with the news of the death of his brother in a Brooklyn hospital. Hughes left to Boston with his sister. It was said he was drinking heavily, and after a few days departed on the steamer Tallahassee for Savannah. Early one morning a waiter saw him near the rail on the starboard side of the bow. He had thrown his muffler on the deck and was trying to take off his overcoat. The waiter caught him by the coat collar, and a deckhand came to help describing that Hughes "raged like a madman". Then Hughes slipped out of his overcoat and dropped into the river. There was no doubt it was an act of suicide. There were letters among his things that mentioned financial troubles. When the dust had settled no one was ultimately charged, and convicted of a cold-blooded murder. It’s unknown if the prosecution didn’t move forward because they only had circumstantial evidence, and George Muller provided an alibi through his boss. What is known is that after the Dolshagrens were killed, George Muller, Henry Vesper and Max Boch left Jacksonville, which was only 32 miles away from Lawtey, each to run their own businesses. All of those involved were born in Germany, and even though Boch was the murdered man’s nephew, it’s unknown if Dolshagrens knew the other two. ![]() THE LADY IN THE POND The first settlement in the area now known as Lutz was a Catholic mission started in the late 1880's by Luxembourg Catholic priest Francis Xavier A. Stemper. Those who settled in the Stemper colony were not Germans but people from the small country of Luxembourg. The Stemper post office was established on November 17, 1893 with Stemper as the postmaster. The old Stemper colony dwindled away in the early 1900's, but thrived again a few years later as people moved there to work in the turpentine industry. Artifacts from the old Stemper colony can still be found even under the front yards of some of the local residents (namely, the old cemetery.) None of the buildings remain today, but some of the lumber from the old church was used to build the garage of a local resident. Stemper school was in operation for several years. German immigrant children sat side by side with local Florida "crackers." Classes were separated by gender. The boys were taught by Father Stemper himself and the girls were taught by a "Miss Nelson," who would ride her white horse to school every day from Lake Magdalene. ![]() May 1921 A lazy circle of buzzards over a remote cow pasture alerted the attraction of berry pickers. Floating in the middle of the pond was the object of their attention. It was the badly decomposed body of a woman floating face up, that was later identified as Aurora Hernandez, who lived at 915 Seventh Avenue, Lutz, Florida. She had been missing for 10 days. The pond where Aurora Hernandez we found was about 2 miles from a roadway or house. She wore a nightgown-type dress, and she had a large hole over the right breast which showed two ribs had been broken, which could only have been cause by the force of a hard blow. She was seen leaving her home on Friday, May 13 while her grandson was at work. Aurora was said to have sought information as to how to get back to Ybor City, and then was later seen at Sulphur Springs where she asked for similar directions. She was 78 years old and spoke no English. ![]() Her grandson Domingo Penalver identified her by the rings she was wearing. He met with Constable Johnson at the small house in the Marti burial grounds at West Tampa. She was buried right after due to the advanced decomposition of the body. Dr. H.O. Snow the county physician performed an autopsy, but due to the deteriorated state of the body, he could not verify the cause of death. Little flesh was left upon the skull, and the physician confirmed the blow that broke her ribs practically caved in the entire side of the breast. The lower jaw was missing and there were several other holes in the body at various places, but he could not determine if they were made by buzzards, or were actual injuries. The afternoon of the day she was buried, Constable Johnson was brought word that several people living in the area saw a woman answering Aurora's description, walking along a roadway in the neighborhood of where she was found. They saw two men following her. Constable Johnson then received a report she had been killed by an automobile, and that her body was carried to the lake and left there by the driver to cover up the crime. A jury found she came to her death by causes unknown. Her grandchildren, Domingo and Georgina Penalver told the jury that for some time her minds had been affected, and that she had previously left her home and wandered about. That she was murdered was evident, but was it for robbery or was she struck by a vehicle? She still wore three gold rings, so robbery though possible seems doubtful. However the severity of her injuries seems more plausible as being caused by a vehicle, but instead of taking her for medical attention or at the very least calling the police, the driver took her over two miles away and dumped her in a lake. If not for the buzzards and the berry pickers, her family would have always wondered what happened to their loved one. ![]() THE REAL MR. MEADOWS December 29, 1920 Jacksonville A mere two days before the New Year of 1921, a couple were found slain in a Jacksonville hotel located at 915 W. Bay St. The man was shot twice through the chest, and the woman was shot once through the forehead. She was still alive, but unconscious when the police entered through a window, since the door was locked. They had registered as Mr. and Mrs. W.F. Meadows. A key ring plate in the dead man's possession bore the engraving "J.A. Sandefur," and an Oklahoma City address. Letters in the room were addressed to Mr. and Mrs. W.F. Meadows. Then police received a telegram from E. D. Carter of Elliston, Virginia asking for a description of the couple, which eventually proved to be moot since the identity of the couple was soon established. In the absence of identifying the woman, Mr. Walker F. Walker was traveling from Memphis to Jacksonville in search of his daughter, who he said married W.F. Meadows, whose name was used to register at the hotel. Mr. Meadows, Sr. of Moultrie, Georgia also traveled to Jacksonville, but after viewing the man's body said it was not his son William Meadows. He said he did have an older, married son who lived in Oklahoma. Mr. Meadows said he knew nothing of Willie’s marriage to anyone. ![]() The body of the man was ordered to be shipped to Owensboro, Kentucky for burial by order of one of his brothers, who verified the identity of the dead man. By January 2, 1921 it was noted in the newspapers that Jack Sandefur was the son of Burgess Alexander Sandefeur, an Oklahoma City merchant who ran a feed store. Originally the family was from Kentucky, and father and son had run the business in Oklahoma. The whereabouts of Willie Meadows had not been ascertained at the time of the crime, and the police were unable to locate him in Oklahoma or elsewhere. Meadows Sr. stated he had had no communication from his son lately. A day later the woman died. She was identified as Mrs. W.F. Meadows, 17, of Memphis, Tennessee by her father W.F. Walker. In the daily newspaper her full name was never published, as well as the name of the hotel where the incident occurred. Her full identity was Effie Lee Meadows nee Walker, born October 29, 1902. She married Willie (William) Felton Meadows, 19, on October 18, 1920 in Memphis, Tennessee. This was a mere two months before she died. She lied saying she was 19 years old, since she was technically 17 years old on the date of her marriage, and would have needed parental consent to marry. Mr. Walker stated that he was confident that a third party was responsible for the death of his daughter, and the man in the room. He stated he received a letter from his daughter written the day before she was discovered in a dying condition, in which she was optimistic enough about life and perfectly normal in all of her statements. ![]() So how did Effie Meadows end up dead in a Jacksonville hotel room, with a man who was really named Jack Sandefur but assumed the identity of her husband? And to add to the mystery, where was the real Willie Meadows who had not responded to his father's telegrams (or so his father claimed), and who it appeared had married behind his back only two months before. Had his bride run away with another man? Why would Effie Meadows kill the man she had just run away with, and then herself? After the initial story appeared in the newspapers, it dropped completely from view. Willie Flowers remarried in 1930, had children and died in 1960 at the age of 59. The incident no doubt was closed out as a lurid, murder suicide, but what if it was murder after all, then who was it who pulled the trigger? ![]() THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN PINE A murder mystery played out in Miami in February, 1921. A body discovered on a lonely road 10 miles west of Miami, would be identified by Fred Pine, who was the Dade County Solicitor. The dead man was his brother, and The Tamiami Trail which stretched westward into the Everglades, would be known as a place where bodies would be left since it was a desolate place. The victim’s name was Captain James A. Pine, and his murder mystified the city. He was a well-known and well-liked man in Miami, and his family had lived for many years in the city. His father, James Pine Sr. was considered a settler in Coconut Grove, and had served in the Union Army during the Civil War, attaining the rank of Captain. He also served as Miami's Postmaster, and passed in 1905. Prior to his arrival in Miami, James Pine Jr. served as the assistant keeper at the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse from 1893 to 1896. From there he moved to Miami and captained several charter yachts, including the Orion, Arraconda and the Cynthiana which he owned. ![]() At one point Captain Pine lived with his wife and four children on the Four Pines, a houseboat moored at the mouth of the Miami River. Captain Pine did not lead a dull life, even though few ever believed he would find his end at the hands of a murderer. In December, 1904 he was rescued by life guards at Jupiter when he almost drowned. Then in 1912, he suffered a head injury when a roller slipped from under one end of timber, when he was working under a scow. He was bleeding from his mouth, ears and nose, due to a fractured skull. Luckily H.J. Park, a New York millionaire paid for his care in John Hopkins Hospital. He described Captain Pine as his "trusted hunting and fishing companion" when he would come to vacation in Florida. ![]() However despite his reputation for being well-liked, not all felt that way about him. In October, 1915 he was arrested based on a complaint of Mrs. W.E. Shackleford. He was charged with assault and battery. It was claimed that he choked Mrs. Shackleford and threatened to kill her. Captain Mallow from the yacht Stranger interfered, since he believed the woman was about to be severely beaten. Pine was eventually charged only with disorderly conduct. Captain Pine countered the woman’s allegation saying he merely prevented her from hurling abusive language at him. Her husband also figured in the case, since she was divorcing him. Overall it was described as a neighborhood quarrel. Pine continued in his work taking wealthy New Yorkers on fishing trips along the Florida Coast and into the Keys. He also visited Nassau. ![]() In December, 1920 Captain Pine was arrested, and his boat the Cynthiana with a cargo of whiskey valued at $40,000 was seized near Savannah. He was released on bond and returned to Miami, and the liquor was supposedly owned by a Savannah saloonkeeper named Cottingham. None expected the 47-year-old man would be found dead on February 22, 1921, on a lonely road near the Glass sawmill at a place known as Montgomery Corner. He had suffered extensive injuries to his head. He was so bloody and disfigured that even men who knew him did not recognize the body until it was taken to the undertaker, and had blood removed from his face. The undertaker found 6 or 7 deep gashes in the back of the head apparently made by a hatchet. A number of the cuts penetrated to the brain. It appeared he had been attacked from behind. Eddie Pine, a fireman at the central fire station identified his father once the body was brought to King Undertaking Company. Later Ada Pine would describe that her husband had left the house the night before with a strange man who called to see him. A neighbor later told police about a stranger who had asked directions to the Captain's house from her. She described him as middle-aged, with a long drooping moustache, shabbily dressed with an accent. This fit the description of a man who registered at the Biscayne Hotel the previous Saturday, and asked the clerk to call Captain Pine over the telephone, but he was unable to do so. Captain Pine did eventually come to the hotel, and the clerk saw them talking on the upper porch of the hotel for some time. Eventually the stranger did show up at the Pine house around 8:30 pm. They talked for 15 minutes on the porch and then they left together toward the Curtiss Bright Ranch, to see the man's partner on a business matter. Pine told his wife not to wait up for him. ![]() The police were tipped off about a stranger, 50 years of age who was last seen with Captain Pine, and that a green automobile shot at officer Frank Croff who was on a motorcycle, the morning of the murder. They crowded him off the road, and he was unable to pursue them. He would go on to find James Pine’s body, still warm on the side of the road in a ditch. Many saw Pine's murder as substantiation of rumors of a war among the bootleggers of South Florida. The war stemmed from organized booze runners trying to stop "outlaw" bootleggers. Pine's friends argued the most plausible theory was that someone was afraid that since his arrest in Savannah he might give information, and start a sweeping investigation into the Miami-Bimini liquor traffic. There was no denying that he knew all the boat owners up and down the coast. Leads dried up after several initial arrests, however police claimed that circumstantial evidence pointed to Ludwig Kohlweiss, an Austrian who farmed near the Curtiss Bright ranch. A reward for $3,000 was offered for the arrest of the murderer, and a price was placed on Kohlweiss' head when he fled the country. It wasn't certain if he fled to his native country or elsewhere. His wife Emma, and his brother Mike Kohlweiss of Moore Haven were under arrest for some time as possible accessories, but were subsequently released. ![]() A large quantity of dried blood was found underneath the Ford truck body in their possession, and it was believed to have been the murder car. There was also blood-stained clothes belonging to Kohlweiss found in a corner of the room, hidden under a pile of other clothing. It was also determined that Kohlweiss had financial problems, which might have spurred his decision to kill Pine, either to rob him or to receive some type of payoff from someone who wanted the boat captain killed. In October, 1922 it was found that Ludwig Kohlweiss was held in a Mexican jail under the assumed name of Pedro Pablo Fisher. He had tried to hold up a local bank. Due to the strained relations between the United States and Mexico, they would not extradite him, however they did say that he was to be expelled from Mexico, and officials from Dade county were hoping to take charge of him at the border. Sheriff Louis A. Allen was ready to leave Florida and travel to the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas once the Mexican consul advised him that Kohlweiss was to be deported. While the investigation into Captain Pine’s murder played out, his widow living her own turbulent life. Within 8 months of her husband's death in October, 1921, Ada Pine married J.J. Hart better known as Red Hart. However it seemed that Ada was not meant to find happiness so soon. In February, 1922 only 4 months after they were married J. J. Hart disappeared with Linton Stranger, captain of the yacht Rochester and Leon Walker a fisherman who worked around Elser pier. The three men had gone off to Bimini, and it was feared they had been drowned during a squall, that caught them in open waters. Eddie Pine flew to Bimini and verified the boat never arrived there, and that nothing had been seen or heard of the missing men. Then on February 11, 1922 the search for the missing men took a strange turn. A Japanese man was taken into custody when blood was found on his shirt. He was a hanger on at a resort on NW 4th Street, near the north side of the Miami River opposite where the dismembered body of a man was found floating in the river. An examination of the shirt found the blood was probably human but old. ![]() Ada Hart along with James Rhodes, a son-in-law went to the morgue to view what was left of the body. By then her husband had been missing about 3 weeks. Mrs. Hart was positive the remains did not belong to her husband. Rhodes said that Hart had carried with him about $850 when he was last seen alive by his relatives, and there was suspicion he had been murdered for the money. Two other portions of the body were found the following day in the river, one was the other half of the torso and the other was part of the intestines that were found floating in the Seybold canal. The second half of the torso contained the vertebrae, and fitted the quarter piece of the body found initially. There were marks of a knife on the side, but it wasn’t known if this was how the victim was killed, or the wounds were made during dismemberment. It was believed the body was cut up in a bathtub, and the pieces were disposed of by throwing them in to the river. The only mark of possible identification on the body was a mole about the size of a quarter just below the left shoulder blade. Then the mystery of the men's disappearance was solved when a cablegram was received describing where all 3 men were picked up by a schooner, which had left Puerto Rico bound for New York. They had spent 4 days tossed about on the ocean, and were picked up about 25 miles off the coast of Cuba. They eventually traveled back to Miami. J.J. Hart was arrested only a few months later in January, 1923 charged with illegal possession of liquor. Hart lived on the houseboat The Chippewa where deputies found 5 quarts of House of Lords whiskey, and 3 pints of Irish. He along with another man were released on bonds of $500 each. It seemed that Mrs. Hart was also implicated, and in March her husband paid a fine of $50, and her case was dismissed. Ada Hart, not only had to worry about her husband, but her son as well. In August, 1923 Edward Pine and J.W. Williams were fined $1,000, and sentenced to one year each at Waycross, Georgia when they were found illegally transporting 10 cases of liquor in an automobile. J.J. a.k.a. Red Hart appeared not to be able to stay out of trouble. In July, 1924 he was arrested for gambling and possessing gambling devices. In January, 1925 he was arrested for illegal possession of 5 quarts of liquor he carried in his automobile. Somewhere during those years, it seems Ada secured a divorce from J. J. Hart, but it’s never specified what ended the union. Perhaps she just got tired of his shenanigans. What became of J.J. "Red" Hart, who had served in the military during WWI, and also as fireman in Miami in his early years also remains a mystery. Ada Pine Hart married Raymond Demedicis in 1930, only to die in November of that year, after she took a fall from her front porch, and fractured her skull. She was 54 years old. Even though Captain Pine's murderer was identified, there is no further mention if he was finally apprehended at the border by U.S. officers. Due to the lack of information chances are he was not, otherwise a story would have been published that he was being returned to Miami to stand trial for the murder. And as to the identity of the man who was dismembered and tossed into the Miami River, he too remained unnamed and unavenged. ![]()
Host - M.P. Pellicer www.MPPellicer.com SUPPORT VIA DONATION Buy Me A Coffee - https://bit.ly/3SZFf6c Miami Ghost Chronicles: http://bit.ly/MiaGhostChron Nightshade Diary: https://bit.ly/3WuER2z Stories of the Supernatural: https://bit.ly/3td5sDX MY BOOKS: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UljpLr Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3NxXXjX WHERE TO FIND ME: Substack: https://bit.ly/3WtqjjG YouTube: https://bit.ly/3fwo0f2 Bitchute: https://bit.ly/3zAHZ2L Rumble: https://bit.ly/3fwewjY Twitter: https://bit.ly/3SUZAti Gab: https://bit.ly/3sVNPrY Gettr: https://bit.ly/3UjK6jt Clout Hub: https://bit.ly/3DTukqi Hypnosis - https://www.hypnosis-diy.com Music - Pixabay.com, Purple-Planet.com Narration always by a human, no A.I.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Stories of the Supernatural Podcast MP3 FilesStories of the Supernatural listen to episodes without commercial interruption on your browser or download the mp3 file
Marlene
|