Mager Case: Newspaper Articles
SALEM FARMER, SON MISSING, SHOTS, BLOOD POINT TO CRIME
William Mager Believed Slain by Son, Officers Unable to Find Body
BLOOD INDICATES SHOTS TOOK EFFECT
Sheriff’s Officers Unable to Trace son, Family Quarrels Thought Responsible
Nov 9, 1925
Unable to find any trace of Harold Mater, 24, and with the license number furnished at that of the machine he was driving apparently wrong, Washtenaw sheriff’s department is today facing a difficult task in solution of the disappearance and probable slaying of William Mager, 49, Salem township farmer. Strife in the Mager family which led to the
decision of the children and their mother to leave home three years ago and finally resulted in the suicide of the wife, is believed responsible for the clash between the father and son Sunday.
Shots heard in the barn at the rear of the home Sunday morning by the hired man, who found, upon investigating the son had driven away and the father was missing, caused him to notify the sheriff’s department.
Posse Searches Woods
Led by Undersheriff Dick Elliott a posse of farmers and sheriff’s officers searched the neighborhood all day Sunday, but failed to find either the body of the elder Mager, or any trace of the son.
According to information given by the hired man, Clifton Adams, Harold Mager drove to the farm Sunday morning and asked excitedly for his father, who was in the barn. A few minutes later he heard two shots fired. The officers found where one had gone through the barn door and blood on the barn floor indicated the other had taken effect.
After the shots were fired the man said he saw the younger mager drive his car around to the barn door and a little while later he left. The man then went to the barn, found the blood stains, and called the officers.
Tracks Visible
Tracks of the car in the newly fallen snow enabled officers to follow the car to a clump of bushes near McCormack Lake where the machine stopped. Behind the bushes officers found blood stains, but no body. The tracks went from there to the main highway where they were lost.
Checking up upon Harold Mager’s activities the past few days the officers found he had left his last rooming house, 331 E. Ann St., Ann Arbor, last Friday. The family did not know where he moved to when he left their house. The license number furnished by the hired man as that of the car which Mager was driving was apparently wrong. The car was issued to Charles mead, Jr., Adrian, a student who says he traded it in South Bend, Ind., some time ago.
Quarreled Over Land
Quarrels between members of the family arose over the desire of the son to be given part of the 350 acres of land the elder Mager owns neighbors informed the officers. Three years ago the son asked for one of the two farms and the father refused. Quarreling finally resulted in the decision of Mrs. Mager, her son and two daughters to leave home. Mrs. Mager filed suit for divorce but ended her life before the case was heard. Since then the son had attempted at different times to work for his father but on each occasion left after quarreling with him. Their final quarrel before the tragedy of Sunday occurred a week ago.
The elder Mager was born in Germany but lived in Salem township nearly all his life. His age is given s 57.
Harold Mager is described as 24 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weight 135 or 140 pounds. His description has been sent to all police in this vicinity.
Acted Queer
That young Mager has been acting in a peculiar manner for some time is the information coming to sheriff’s officers as the investigation continues today. Henry Mager, a brother William Mager, who lives in Ann Arbor, and one of the sisters, Mrs. R. B. Newton, Ann Arbor, admitted to officers that for some time he had not appeared well-balanced and an Ann Arbor attorney admitted today that the young man had threatened to shoot him when he was engaged as counsel in the divorce case of a young woman whom Mager has become interested in. An Ann Arbor garage employee today told officers that when the elder Mager was in Ann Arbor only last week he had said he was worrying about the boy, who had threatened to kill him.
Renewed search of all abandoned buildings, woods, and marsh land in the vicinity of Mud Lake
Today has failed to reveal ant trace of the missing man.
Sheriff Robison, Undersheriff Elliott and Deputy Osborn are handling the investigation.
MAGER, MIND BLANK, FOUND ON GRAY FARM
Ypsilanti Police Arrest Man believed to Have Killed William Mager
OFFICERS CONTINUE SEARCH FOR BODY
Young Man Admits Identity, has No Memory of Events Since Last Friday
Nov 10, 1925
Harold mager, 24, is held in county jail today while Undersheriff Dick Elliott, assisted by Chief of Police John Connors, searches and swamp land in the vicinity of the Mager farm for traces of the body of his father, William Mager, whom the young man is believed to have killed early Sunday morning. Mager, according to the officers, is plainly mentally unbalanced.
The man was arrested Monday evening, 8 o’clock, by officers Maurice Miller and Herman Oltersdorf of the city police force after Mrs. Annie Dexter Gray called police to report that a man had been sitting in an automobile near their home since 6 o’clock in the evening. She had no idea who he was as neither she not Mr. Gray had questioned him
Admitted Identity
Driving out to the Gray farm, just north of the city, the officers found the machine parked near a small woods. Mager was sitting huddled up in the front sear. When Officer Oltersdorf opened the door of the car and asked him his name he readily admitted he was Harold Mager.
Mager was held in police headquarters here until the officers could reach Undersheriff Dick Elliott, who took him to county jail. Questioned last night, he said he had been looking for work for days. He had driven until a flat tire compelled him to stop, and as it was night, he decided to stop and sleep in the car until morning when he intended to repair it and drive on.
Mind a Blank
Apparently Mager had no recollection of what had transpired since he left his rooming house in Ann Arbor last Friday. He had not been seen since by anyone except the hired man on the Mager Farm, Clifton Adams, who reported to officers he had driven to the farm early Sunday morning, asked for his father, met him in the barn where two shots were fired, and driven away.
In the back sear of the car were his trunk packed with his clothing, and a 32 revolver which was empty. Preliminary investigation failed to reveal any traces of blood on the machine which was taken to Ann Arbor where it will more carefully examined today.
Condition Not feigned
Mager wore a cowhide coat, was spattered with mud, haggard and hollow-eyed. The officers who saw him believe that his mental condition is not feigned. His mind seemed to wander, and he talked incoherently of events which had transpired years ago.
Questioned concerning his father he seemed not to realize that anything had happened. He said his father was out on the farm when asked where his father was. The officers then asked him where he and his father went Sunday when they drove away and he replied that he did not know.
Daily YP November 11 wed 1928
SANITY COMMISSION TO EXAMINE MAGER
Man who killed Father will probably be placed in Ionia Institution
Body Found Buried in Webster Township
All Day Search Ends at Nightfall at shallow grave, con confesses crime.
Standing beside the shallow grave in which he had placed the body of the father whom he had slain, while late afternoon shadows deepened in the stark woods and the damp chill of early November increasing as the sun dipped nearer the horizon’s rim, gathered penetratingly about him. Harold Mager shuddered, made one made one lunge backward as if to escape the scene, then stood with the same blank look which has marked his features since his arrest here Monday night. Handcuffed to one of the officers who, with a few farmers comprised the little group which had uncovered the body of William Mager, escape was impossible. Mager did not try again.
It was late Tuesday afternoon before the officers found the grave in which young Mager had buried his father just two days before at nearly the same hour. All day they had driven through the county following the trail Mager pointed out, turning first right and then left, over rough clay country roads. He had directed them almost as far east as Plymouth, through Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, over all the roads in Salem Township, in the vicinity of his father’s farm where the crime had been committed early Sunday morning. At last, after repeated questioning he had led the way into Webster township, but when the road narrowed, and led into a hollow, with woods on either side he said ‘drive on, farther on.’
Find Fresh Track
It was Chief of Police John Connors who was driving as the trail led to the woods on the Ralph Williams land. He passed the first drive which led into the woods, but when he came to the second entrance he saw fresh car tracks and stopped. Following the path about four rods into the woods, the officers saw where a track led from the roadway and following it they found the grave at the foot of an embankment, about two rods from the drive.
Without shovels it was impossible to uncover the body, but William Scadin, Ralph Williams Sr., and Ralph Williams, Jr. farmers in the neighborhood, readily offered help, and returning to the woods the body was soon uncovered. It had been buried, face downward, in the shallow grave, covered with leaves, then clay, and leaves and brush placed over the top.
Strap about neck
The elder Mager was dressed in blue overalls, a rough work coat, and rubber boots. About his neck was a mail strap, such as his son had used in carrying mail.
It was chief Connors who spoke after the gruesome e task of uncovering the body had been finished.
“Aren’t you sorry? There is your father, the man who played with you when you were a boy, and you killed him. Aren’t you sorry?”
“Yes, in a way. In a way, I’m not.” And that was all the answer his son would give.
Back in the sheriff’s office in Ann Arbor the man admitted to Undersheriff Dick Elliott, Deputy Osborn and the Chief that he had planned to kill his father for some time. He had purchased the shovel with which to dig the grave at a store near Whitmore Lake some days before. The shovel has not been found.
Afraid of Mob
It was only after the officers had threatened to take Mager back to his father’s farm, where a crowd of neighbors had gathered yesterday morning when news of the arrest reached them, that Mager was at all willing to direct the men to the place where he had left the body. Plainly unbalanced, the officers now believe that a great share of the time he merely feigned lack of memory.
Failing to find the body near the Waack or Gray farms, north of here, where Mager was arrested, the three officers took the prisoner first to the farm in Salem township where he remained unmoved by the sight of blood on the barn floor and in the clump of bushes where had first taken the body, returning later and taking it away again. All day the party drove over the county roads. Once Mager attempted to escape and it was then he was handcuffed to Deputy Osborn, while Connors and Elliott took turns driving the car. At last, near nightfall, he told them to drive into Webster township, and the grave was found.
Shot from Behind
Examination of the body by Coroner Burchfield today revealed that the elder Mager had been shot twice, from behind, one shot entering his head and coming out through the left ear, the other entering the head and lodging in his body. The strap about his neck had been put on after he was shot and did not cause his death.
Officers believe that absence of blood stains in the car which Mager drove is explained by the young man’s care in wiping them off. His trunk had the appearance of having been washed.
If present plans are carried out by the officers, mager will be arraigned here, remanded to jail, probably without bail, and held pending examination by a sanity commission. It is expected he will be placed in the Ionia hospital for criminally insane.
TRIAL OF MAGER TO START TODAY
Nov. 18, 1925
Prosecutor has witnesses ready for appearance this afternoon
Trial of Harold Mager, accused of killing his father William Mager, is to start in circuit court this afternoon. Mager is to be brought before Circuit Judge George Sample at 2 o’clock.
The report of the committee of physicians named by Judge Sample to examine his sanity, will not be heard until after the trial. It is necessary to prove him guilty of the crime, before he can be committed to a hospital for criminally insane, as is now the plan of the prosecution.
Assistant prosecutor Floyd Daggett is to handle the case in court against Mager.
Nov. 19 dyp
Mager Sent to Ionia Hospital After Hearing
Judge Sample Sentences Youth who killed own father
“I’d just as soon go to Pontiac. That was Harold Mager’s only response when sentenced to Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane by Circuit Judge George Sample Wednesday afternoon for killing his father, William Mager. Standing before the bar, cap in hand, stoic, uncomprehending, his expressionless blue eyes fixed on the judge’s face, he heard sentence pronounced without a trace of emotion. Asked if he had anything to say, he returned to one of his original contentions; that there were “others in the gang” which killed his father. Questioned as to who they were, he said he did not know their names.
Then it was that Judge Sample found him guilty of the crime and mentally incompetent, according to testimony of witnesses who were heard during the afternoon, and accordingly sentenced him to the state institution. If at any time he should sufficiently recover to be released from the hospital, within 60 days he will be returned to Washtenaw city to answer the charge to which he is now judged incompetent to plead, either guilty or not guilty.
Physicians Testify
Testimony of Mr. Theophil Klingman and Dr. Howard H. Cummings was first introduced in the hearing yesterday. The 2 physicians had been appointed as a sanity commission to examine Harold Mager by Judge Sample last Thursday. They found him suffering from a mental disorder, testifying he was devoid of emotion, suffered illusions of prosecution, was incoherent, had no realization of the seriousness of his situation and no regret for what he had done. Dr. Klingman testified that he was in nearly the same mental condition a year ago when he first examined him. At that time he was a patient at St. Joseph’s sanitarium.
Testimony of other witnesses in the case followed. Clifton Adams, hired man on the William Mager farm, told of events on the day William Mager was slain. He had directed Harold Mager to the sheep barn, where his father was at work, heard the shots, saw Harold drive his car to the back of the barn and then drive away. When he went to investigate, he found only the pool of blood. Mr. Mager was gone.
Brother Testified
Henry Mager, the dead man’s brother, testified to quarrels Harold had had with his father only the day before.
Dick Elliott and John Connors then told of the search for Harold, which ended when he was arrested by Ypsilanti police officers and the long ride over country roads before Harold finally directed them to the grave where he had buried his father. There, and later in the sheriff office, he had confessed that he alone had committed the crime.
After hearing all evidence Judge Sample pronounced sentence. Deliberations by the jury were waived by Lewis Burk who had been engaged to represent mager’s two sisters, who are to be appointed his guardians.
Nov. 20 TAKEN TO IONIA
Sheriff’s officers are today taking 3 prisoners to Ionia. Harold Mager goes to the hospital for criminally insane. Claude Way has been given a sentence of 2 and ½ to 10 years for stealing a car in Ann Arbor and Carl Wright 1 to 10 years for burglary.
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