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Sheedy's Murder

DAWNING OF THE HORRIBLE FACTS.

Monday McFarland Makes a Confession That Confirmes Current Suspicion.

The Wife of the Deceased is Arrested in Company With her Supposed Paramer, A. H. Walstrom.

Suspicion The Poison From Her Own Hand Completed the Murder So Well Begun--The Body [?] Sunday.

Slowly but surely the web is tightening around the principals in the Sheedy murder case and already have the guilty parties been ensnared in its meshes. Link by link had been forged the chain of circumstances until it is completed and now the veil that shrouded the mystery has been torn away and the clear light of day is mining upon the terrible affair, leaving the assassins exposed to view. Every detail in the dark tragedy is now known and it stands revealed as one of the most skilfully planned and cold blooded crimes in the annals of criminal history and is absolutely without a parallel in the history of Nebraska.

The first step in the untangling of the skein was the arrest of Monday McFarland Saturday night as the assassin who struck the blow that laid John Sheedy low. In its narrative of the arrest of McFarland THE JOURNAL, owing to circumstances that were eminently proper in order that the ends of justice might be accomplished, refrained from going into the full details of the crime and gave only a meagre account of the affair. Happily these obstacles have been removed and THE JOURNAL is now in a position to give the fullest and most minute details of the crime.

After Monday McFarland was placed in a cell Detective Malone set to work to persuade the prisoner to make a confession and acknowledge his complicity in the crime, and also to reveal the identity of his accomplice, for it was well known to Malone that McFarland was not alone in the commission of this awful deed. All night long McFarland was put through a rigid questioning, and as he was made aware of each link in the chain of circumstances against him began to falter and finally, before the sun arose in the eastern horizon, McFarland, in the presence of Detective Malone and Officer Kinney, confessed to the killing of John Sheedy and unfolded a tale that was at once terrible and horrible in its import. McFarland's confession implicates none other than Mrs. Mary Sheedy, wife of the murdered man, and her paramour, one A. H. Walstrom, a young man whom she met in Buffalo, N. Y., last summer during a visit there and with whom she became infatuated and who followed her to Lincoln, all unknown to her husband. The details of McFarland's confession as related to a JOURNAL reporter by Detective Malone and Officer Kinney are substantially as follows. The confession was repeated in the presence of Mayor Graham, Marshal Malick, Detective Malone and a stenographer who took it all down. At present writing it is impossible to publish it verbatim. However, the substance of the confession is given below:

For several years past McFarland has been acting in the capacity of hair dresser to Mrs. Sheedy and always performed his work at the Sheedy residence. In the course of these hair dressing visits an intimacy sprang up between Mrs. Sheedy and her dark skinned servitor. This intimacy gradually reached the point where Mrs. Sheedy took McFarland into her confidence to such an extent as to confide to his keeping all her domestic difficulties. Gradually, according to McFarland this intimacy assumed such proportions that he became something more than a common African hair dresser. He became fascinated with the woman, but it was a fascination that also partook of fear, a fascination and fear that was destined to place the brand of Cain upon his brow and possible to lead him a shameful death upon the gallows. In the latter part of the last November, while McFarland was at the Sheedy residence upon one of his hair-dressing expeditions, Mrs. Sheedy made a proposition to him so horrible in its import as to cause him to turn sick at heart. It was no less than a proposition for him to murder her husband for a money consideration and for other favors yet to come. The unnatural wife agreed to pay McFarland $15,000 to murder her husband, $500 after the deed was committed and the murdered man buried and the remainder of the $15,000 after the estate had been settled up, McFarland would not agree to do the job, whereupon Mrs. Sheedy threatened to kill him and compelled him to fall upon his knees and swear that he would commit the terrible crime.

Eventually McFarland agreed to get Sheedy out of the way by Christmas. The time drew near for the commission of the crime and McFarland began to weaken. He frequently called at the Sheedy residence during the absence of the unsuspecting husband. He and Mrs. Sheedy finally agreed that the job must be done, and the means to be employed a revolver. On the evening of December 19 last McFarland filled up the whisky to nerve himself to do this deed. He took his station in the yard shortly after 9'clock and awaited the coming of his intended victim. He was under the impression that Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy were calling on on Mr. and Mrs. Charles Carpenter, who live a few doors east of Sheedy's residence, and was expecting Sheedy to come from that direction. Unknown to McFarland Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy attended the Eden Musee on that evening and came home from the opposite direction and McFarland was taken unawares. In order to prevent Sheedy from recognizing him he fired a shot from his revolver in the air and then ran through the back yard, into the alley and made his escape.

The first attempt had proven fruitless and John Sheedy was still in the path of his wife and his lover, Walstrom. But she was determined that her husband must die and she sent a note for McFarland to come and see her. McFarland came and again Mrs. Sheedy and he planned to kill Sheedy. Mrs. Sheedy said the deed must be done by New Years and that is must be done by a blow. She gave McFarland money to buy a heavy cane and the latter went to Goldwater's pawnshop on North Ninth street on Friday January 9, and purchased the fatal cane. He hit it under the steps of John Sharp's barber shop and left it there until half past 5 o'clock on the Sunday evening the blow was struck. He took the cane at the hour mentioned and went to the Sheedy residence, meeting Mrs. Sheedy on the back porch. She told McFarland that the deed must be done that night and gave him 50 cents to buy a pint of whisky to bolster up his courage. She also said if the blow did not kill her husband she would do the rest; all she cared for was to get him in bed and then she would find means to remove him forever.