A Murder Mystery

Well, here it is Dec. 4th, 1945; a horrible windy rainy day and I am alone, hating the wind. Hunt and Marie are at work: Hunt at Camp Roberts, Marie in Paso Robles. I am not fond of it, but must be brave. How I wish I had taken time before starting to write this record to make notes and in that way this would not have been so jumbled as to happenings: but I didn't and one consequently has to take it as it is. These things are noted as they recur to me.

One person who I hope to be able to later speak of in detail was Lizzie Freethy. If I should repeat any of her part in my record, please overlook. She was practically my only girl friend in the early days of my life on the prairie. She and her brothers, Thornton and John, used to come to our place to play very often. She was a very pretty girl. One day when we were playing out in the yard, my Mother appeared on the scene. Lizzie exclaimed, "Oh! Here she comes." I said, "Who comes?" Lizzie replied, laughing at me, "Oh, Minnie doesn't know who She is." I suppose they called their mother "she." The three of them thought I was dumb, not knowing who they meant by "She," though I thought they didn't know very much. All through the years we loved to go to the Freethys because everyone had such a good time there. While on the subject of the Freethys, it might be a good time to finish the story of Lizzie Freethy, though the telling of her life as I knew her really occurred years later than the foregoing and after I was married.

When she grew up, she became engaged to Cecil Seed, a neighbor boy, a nice boy with no bad habits. They went together for several years and he had lavished gifts. I say, "lavished," because at that time such gifts as he gave her were considered out of the ordinary, such as a gold watch, bracelets, rings and boxes of chocolates. They were to have been married shortly when Lizzie broke the engagement. It happened this way.

A former preacher, Mr. Mussleman, came back to visit in our community. He had been stationed for a year or two in our district and had made many friends. By the way, he was a Methodist and should have been above suspicion, but he had the reputation of making love to practically every girl he met. While visiting in our community this time I write of, he went over to the Freethys for a few days and while there persuaded Lizzie to become engaged to him. He was very attractive, tall and blond and persuasive. Well, Lizzie fell for him and when Cecil Seed came to see her the following Sunday evening, she had all his gifts ready to return to him. Cecil asked her what she meant. She told him she was engaged to Mr. Mussleman. Poor Cecil was heartbroken. Lizzie's father was on a visit to his people in Ontario that winter and her mother, not being able to do a thing in the matter, either wired or wrote Mr. Freethy to come home at once, which he did, and sent Mr. Mussleman on his way, forbidding Lizzie to see or communicate with Mussleman in any way. Of course, Cecil never went back to her; he was through. Lizzie was like one in a trance for months and months after her father kicked Mr. Mussleman out. She would sit staring into space for hours at a time, refusing to talk to anyone. Mussleman was a fly-by-night no good sinner. He was engaged to a half dozen girls. They simply could not resist him, but he was not true to any of them. How he ever remained in the ministry is a mystery.

Then, in the course of a few months, she accepted an offer of marriage from Tom Gore, another young man in our community, a boy she never before would even look at, but who had always been crazy about her. I remember one time when we were threshing -- and by the way we threshed with horsepower at that time -- and which I shall describe later -- Lizzie had been helping me in the house through the ordeal of cooking for the threshers. When we were finished threshing and Lizzie wanted to go home, Tom Gore talked her into going home with him, so off they went. Tom had a team of horses and a wagon without the box, just the wheels, axles and reach. He, of course, had to sit on the front end of the reach and Lizzie was ensconced on the back end of the reach. At that time, she detested him and we all got a kick out of seeing her going home with Tom on such a conveyance. Tom was quite thrilled at having her with him though a wagon reach separated them.

Well, the years passed. We at that time were living on Uncle Tom's place, then after three years we moved back to our own place. Lizzie Freethy married Tom Gore. They seemed very happy. Tom was devoted to her. They had two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was the elder of the two. Tom was rather sickly, as was his brother and sisters, Maggie and Minni. Jeannie seemed quite healthy and afterwards married Bob Raeburn. Maggie, Mini and George all died of what was then supposed to be asthma. Then, after about 16 years of married life the death of Tom Gore came as a shock to the community.

In the meantime, Mr. Freethy had passed on and a family by the name of Ford had moved in neighbors to both Mrs. Freethy and the Gores. It - this family - consisted only of Mrs. Ford and a son, Jack, who was about the same age as the Gore's son. I do not remember his, the Gore boy's name. The two boys were pals, sometimes spending their spare time at one home or the other. Well, it seems Tom went over to Mrs. Freethys one day and told Mrs. Freethy that he was sure Lizzie was in love with Jack Ford. Mrs. Freethy - remember she was Lizzie's mother - shamed Tom and told him to go home and forget his grievances, that there was no truth in his accusations. Time went on and we, the neighbors, had no idea there was any trouble between them. By this time, we had sold our farm and were living in Lumsden, Sask.

Tom was buried. We did not attend the funeral for some reason. I believe in Tregarva cemetery. One day the whole country around there was electrified by the news that Billy Gore in Regina was having Tom's body exhumed as he suspected Tom had been poisoned and if poison was found he held that Lizzie,

Tom's wife, was the one who had committed the crime. Of course, there were many that condemned her at once. I never believed that she did the deed and have always held to my opinion that he took the poison of his own free will.

Well, the body was exhumed and strychnine was found in sufficient quantities to cause death. Lizzie was arrested and taken to Regina jail. The story she told and the story her mother told was this:

They, Tom, Lizzie, Mrs. Freethy, the children, Mrs. Ford and son, Jack, had all gone to Regina the day of the tragedy. They had gone in their car and by the way before they reached home a blizzard had come up. When they arrived home they prepared supper. Tom complained of not feeling well, which was not unusual. He told Lizzie he was going upstairs to lie down and not to worry about him. It was his habit when he felt unwell to sleep by himself upstairs so he would not disturb Lizzie with his tossing about. Shortly after he had gone upstairs, Lizzie said she heard him making some strange sounds.

They rushed upstairs and found him in great pain and he seemed to be having a convulsion.

Well, Mrs. Freethy was sent for and came. Tom came out of his convulsion and Mrs. Freethy made him a cup of ginger tea and tasted it herself to see if it was too hot. Tom drank the tea. In the meantime, one of the family was sent back to Regina for the doctor, much against Tom’s wishes. He protested against having a doctor. However, they sent for one. It must have been a distance of fourteen or fifteen miles, or maybe more, to Regina, and if I remember right, before the doctor arrived, Tom had died. He was buried in the Tregarva cemetery, I think.

(It is now January 14th, 1948. Many things have prevented me from continuing this history for three years.)

However, now I'll try to continue. This is so disjointed, but as I say, it is written as things come back to me.

Well, to finish about Lizzie Freethy. She was arrested for the murder of her husband and tried in Regina courthouse. Just before her arrest, a press reporter, I believe from the Regina Leader, came out to her farm to interview her. I remember reading his write-up in the Leader and especially the last part of it: it was quite dramatic. He told of the little widow sitting by the window, so sad and pale, gazing out through the deepening twilight, her heart aching for the husband who had gone, never to return. Well, it was only a few days until Tom's body was exhumed, at the insistence of a half brother, Billy Gore, living in Regina and, as I said, strychnine found in his stomach in sufficient quantities to cause death. Then came the arrest and Lizzie was taken to the Regina jail. Her mother, Mrs. Freethy, went in and stayed with her for some days.

It seems to me trials were much quicker then that here in California. There were no long months of waiting after an arrest. I know Tom's death occurred early in the winter and her trial was held before the following spring. Bryant, a red haired criminal lawyer defended her. He made a wonderful plea, and the jury acquitted her. She evidently went back to her farm to live, though of that I couldn't be sure.

Then World War I broke out and practically all the boys enlisted. Jack Ford among the rest. They enlisted in Regina and took their training for over-seas there. Jack Ford's billet was right by that of our two boys, Eddie and Tom and that of Ted Howe, Evelyn's brother. And, though they were so close, they never knew that Jack Ford had married Lizzie Gore (Freethy). No one knew it until after the boys were in France and Lizzie was going to have a baby.

Mrs. Freethy told me about it. Many people said they weren’t married at all, but Mrs. Freethy said they were and I believe her. Probably Jack wasn't eighteen when he enlisted -- many of the boys weren't -- and it wasn't long after the trial and acquittal that they were married. Mrs. Freethy said that Jack Ford said it was the least he could do for her after all she had gone through. When the death of her husband, Tom, occurred, she was thirty-six or thirty-eight years of age and Jack around eighteen.

Well, the boys went overseas April 23rd, 1915, Jack with them. Mrs. Freethy said Jack wrote lovely letters back from France to Lizzie, told her he would always take care of her and hoped to come home safely and be with her and their baby.

Then, all at once, his letters stopped coming. Lizzie's letters were returned, unopened. Lizzie became anxious, fearing he had been killed. She wrote his Captain, Captain Blackburn, from Condie, and inquired about Jack, telling Captain Blackburn that she was married to Jack and that they had a little baby.

Blackburn replied he knew nothing of Jack's private life, but there was no better soldier in France.

Then Lizzie received a letter from Jack himself, telling her he wanted nothing more to do with her, and that should he come back to Regina, he would have nothing to do with her; he never wanted to see her again. And, that she was to have nothing to do with him -- she was not even to speak to him, should she meet him on the street; that he wouldn't recognize her. Well, I guess it was a pretty raw situation, and sometimes I wonder if they were married, though Mrs. Freethy would hardly tell a lie.

The last I heard of Lizzie, she was living in Regina and had become quite a devout member of Jehovah's Witnesses. I never saw her baby, her, or her two children by her husband, Tom.

Mrs. Freethy sold her farm to some of her sons and went to live in Regina. I visited her there one time when I was up from Winnipeg.

What a mess Lizzie made of her life, though! I never will believe she poisoned her husband. I believe he took the poison himself because he wasn't well and allowed his mind to become perverted and imagined things where there was no wrong. But, why did Jack marry Lizzie? Jack was the same age as her son. No happiness could ever come of a union of that kind.

Poor Mrs. Freethy and her family. They were so grand, and it must have been a blow to them.

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