Harry Kirby, Part One: The Killer Amongst Them
Emma’s brush with death
Outside of the cottage, a chorus of spring peepers counted the passing seconds in their rhythmic chant in the rushes of Lake Maranacook, as Emma Townes lay dying on the couch in her living room. Emma could hear their piercing cadence as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She figured it had been 2 or 3 hours since she last saw her killer, and she looked down at the upholstery and saw the life slowly spilling out of her. She had been shot twice—one bullet struck in the face and lodged itself in her neck near the spine, and another struck her in the right arm—the arm she raised to shield herself from the revolver. It had all happened so quickly.
She was deep in the woods of Maine, near the town of Winthrop, and her cottage was perched just off of a train line that ran from Winthrop to Augusta up the eastern side of Lake Maranacook. There was no road that went to her summer cottage—access was by train or by water alone. And at this hour, 2:30AM, there were no trains running nor boats passing by. Hope was draining out of her, when she heard a noise at a window. She prayed that it was someone to help her, but she dared not make a noise. As she heard the window slide open and realized that the stranger didn’t announce himself, she knew that the killer had returned to finish the job.
She heard the wooden planks groan and creak as he made his way to the coach, and she could tell that he was standing there, inches from her, and she willed her body to silence. She held her breath and wondered if he could hear the pounding of her heart over the noise of the forest. She felt him grab her wrist, picking up her arm—and he let it fall, limp by her side. She offered no resistance, maintaining the charade. He opened one of her closed eyelids and peered into her pupils. She let her eyes defocus and glaze over. After a moment more, he seemed satisfied that she was dead.
The footsteps left the couch and went upstairs where she could hear him gathering things, moving some furniture—perhaps he was searching for her jewelry and valuables. He returned to the first floor, went to the window he entered through, and was gone, and she was alone again.
Little did Emma know, her killer had made a pile of clothing in the upstairs bedroom, and had used a match to set it ablaze.
Soon Emma smelled the smoke and heard the crackle of the fire and realized that she would be burned alive if she did not save herself. Her primal brain, willing her to survive, forced her up off the couch, and she stumbled to the back door. She reached for the knob and became afraid—would her killer be watching outside? The haze of smoke was thickening as she made her way to the opposite side of the cabin, opened a window, pushed out the screen, and with strength she did not realize she possessed, pulled her body through the tiny opening and onto the forest floor below. She had escaped.
She started making her way on a forest path toward her neighbors as the cottage burned behind her.
The town rallies to the blaze
Gordon Smith, a neighbor on the opposite side of the lake, happened to be awake at 3:00AM early Wednesday morning, and watched with curiosity the growing red dot on the eastern shore. He didn’t think much of it until it grew to a size that was impossible to ignore. He reached for the telephone and asked the operator to connect him with the volunteer fire department captain, who was roused from bed. As the captain contacted his team, Gordon continued to gather other neighbors to assist in fighting the blaze.
Frank Tuttle and Bobby McNamara were amongst the first to arrive, but even they were too late to save the cottage. As they approached the burning wood structure, they saw Emma Townes stumbling toward them, in Bobby’s words, “like a ghost”. They could tell that she was wounded, but in the dark, they didn’t perceive the extent of her injuries. Her first words were, “I thought you’d never come.” The men spent just a moment with her, but were focused on the conflagration behind her. The kiln-dried wood framing of the cottage went up like a tinder box, and there was no saving it. The vortex of fire was so hot that first responders couldn’t get closer than 20 feet. Frank and Bobby knew that it couldn’t be saved, but they saw that grass and dead leaves were catching on fire, and they worried about Emma’s neighbors. They cut green boughs off a nearby pine tree, dunked them in the frigid spring lake waters, and returned to the front lines of the spreading fire, beating it out before it could threaten another home.
The town’s fire truck made its way up the train line, but by the time it had arrived, the cabin had collapsed.
Emma tells her story
While the men fought the blaze, a high-school-aged girl, Esther Smith, asked Emma how she could help her. Emma asked if Esther could bring her closer to the blaze to warm her body—using her former home as an oversized campfire. Esther instead ushered her to a neighboring cottage, where she removed her own coat and put it around Emma. Emma protested, “You’ll catch cold”, but Esther insisted. She held her tightly as Emma shivered in the cold spring night. Esther noticed some blood, and figured that she had been hurt escaping from the cottage. It wasn’t until an acquaintance of Emma’s arrived and asked her, “Are you burned?” that she revealed, “No, I am shot.” She then explained the night’s events to a rapt audience.
Winthrop was a small town of just hundreds, and she was widely known and respected in the community. Emma had lost her husband, Harry, 25 years prior, in year 1900, to tuberculosis, and she remained a single widow in 1925. 60-year-old Emma Towns lived with her niece, Aida Hayward, who was 32-years-old, at Aida’s cottage on the lakeshore. Aida had inherited, about five years prior, a substantial sum from her parents’ estate, estimated at $21,500 (which today would be about $300,000). With some of that money Aida decided to build herself a cottage a ten-minute walk north of Winthrop (which was situated at the southern tip of Lake Maranacook) that she would use in the warmer months. Emma, though 30 years her senior, was best friends with her young niece. The cottage was one-and-a-half-stories tall and was a built in a bungalow style—a typical vacation-home architecture of the 1910’s—that often featured dormer windows and covered porches. Townspeople said that the 1,700 square foot home was “one of the nicest camps in the region” and its construction costs were about $6,000 ($97,000 in today’s dollars).
They had just moved from their place in town to her camp on the lake a few weeks prior in late April—quite early for Maine. Many summer dwellings in Maine aren’t occupied until late May or early June, so they likely had some freezing cold nights and chilly mornings.
That night, Tuesday, May 19th, 1925, they had seen a play in town at the Eastern Star Lodge (a multifunction meeting hall for the Eastern Star civic association – which was a women’s-only sister organization of the Masons for those who were wives or kin of the men). The Henry Carlton Players, an acting troupe, was in town, and they put on a comedy. Aida, well-dressed as usual, wore a red 20’s Georgette dress—a rectangular, sleeveless, and shapeless dress—with a pink overcoat.
After the show, they got the last train of the night which left Winthrop at 11:21PM and brought them to Big Pine Point—the stop nearest their cabin—about five minutes later. They were the only two people on the train. As it approached, both they and the conductor, Mr. Tuttle, could see the lamp burning inside the cottage—they had left it on because they liked to feel safe at night and avoid fumbling around in the dark.
They disembarked and walked the 50 feet from the train to the back door, which Aida unlocked. Aida entered first and went to a closet at the left of the door. The conductor saw her enter safely, and so he put the train back in gear to return to town. Emma followed and made her way to the kitchen, when a man appeared from the sitting room with a pistol and shot her twice. The first struck her in the right forearm, about 6 inches below her elbow, as she held her hands up to shield her face. The second bullet entered her cheek, shattered her jaw, and embedded itself in her neck. She fell onto the kitchen floor as the train pulled away to return to Winthrop, the sound of the engine masking the crack of the gunshots. In the darkness she could not make out the killer’s face, and his voice was unfamiliar to her.
She heard Aida come from the other room, and the man threatened her with the gun. He instructed her to go with him upstairs. As they were talking in the upstairs bedroom, Emma used what strength she had to crawl to the couch and pull an afghan over her body.
She overheard talk of money upstairs—he seemed to be demanding some, and he, quote, “knew she was good for it.” She overheard the mystery man promise Aida that if she accompanied him on a 50-mile journey, then she would be safe. He said that he would have to bind and gag her, but she protested, saying that there would be no need because she would not fight him. She said to him, “But what if my aunt should die?” When they returned downstairs, the killer looked at Emma’s body and said to her, “Your aunt is already dead. Will you come with me now?” They left out the back door.
Emma laid motionless for what she estimated was 3 hours, afraid to even pick up the telephone, which would sound a loud bell when used, for fear that the intruder might still be nearby. When the man returned and lit the blaze, it may have been the fire that ultimately saved her life because it drew the attention of the town. When Emma finished, the townspeople were stunned and asked where Aida was now, but she had told them all she knew, “He took her away,” was the best that she could offer.
Her neighbors rushed her to Winthrop Community Hospital and called for the doctor to treat her. Her prognosis was grave, and she drifted in and out of consciousness with little hope for recovery.
The news that there was a killer on the loose and a beloved young woman to rescue spread like wildfire, and launched a thousand efforts in a concert of organized chaos.
Fred Moulton’s land speed record (Day 1)
Before the sun had even rose on that Wednesday morning, the word reached Aida’s sister, May, and her husband Fred, who was a business tycoon in Boston, president of his family’s business, C.W.H. Moulton Co, a manufacturer of ladders. That morning they frantically packed—unsure how long they would be staying in Maine—and at 8:00AM, Fred and May hopped into their luxury Lincoln Model L roadster, and made the 175-mile trip from Boston to Winthrop.
1925 was a high-water mark for road construction in the United States. More government money was spent in improving roads than in any previous year, a trend driven by the staggering rise in automobile ownership. The road from Boston to Augusta that Fred and May drove on was likely newly paved. As they flew down the highway, they were tailed and stopped by several policeman who admonished them to slow down, but when they explained the urgency of their trip—that they were in a rush to assist in the search for their abducted sister—they were allowed to continue at their break-neck pace, average 60 miles per hour for much of their trip. The final 19 miles from Augusta to Winthrop likely were on a mixture of surfaces, some of which would be rutted dirt roads, still wet from the spring snowmelt, and when they stepped out onto Winthrop soil, their bones were still vibrating from the 3.5 hour rocky ride they had just endured setting a new Boston to Winthrop speed record.
As soon as Fred was introduced to the authorities in town, he announced a reward of $1,000 for information leading to the discovery of his sister-in-law, dead or alive.
Find the missing girl! (Day 1)
The first priority was a boots-on-the-ground land search of the region. 2 local factory managers shut down their operations so that their workers could participate in one of the largest search parties ever assembled in Maine’s history. An estimated 2,500 men, women, and children, in car and on foot, began scouring the area in search of Aida. Every vehicle was taken out of its garage, and every roadway was checked.
Escape by auto? (Day 1)
One of the earliest questions investigators focused on was how the kidnapper made his escape. There were really only two possibilities: by boat or by foot.
Around 4:30AM that morning, one of the closest neighbors to the burned cottage reported that a man had knocked on their door and asked for a drink of water for his wife, who was waiting in the car for him. There was speculation that the woman in the car could have been Aida, and the man at the door could have been the killer. He could have taken her on foot through forest paths from the burnt cottage to nearby Moore Road, where his escape vehicle waited, parked quietly in a barn. He then may have stopped at the residence to fetch her some water before fleeing the area on the “50-mile trip” that Emma had recalled in her half-conscious state. Later in the day, a scent dog, named “Sergeant”, a German Shepherd / Collie mix, was brought from the Lewiston police department to track Aida. Fred and May brought some clothes of Aida’s from Boston and presented them to Sergeant to establish the scent. The dog led searchers from the burnt remains of the cottage down a forest trail to Moore Road, and finally to a barn next to the Higgins residence—the same residence where the man had stopped for water. Searchers theorized that the man’s car was parked in that barn, which explained why Sergeant could follow the scent no further.
Another neighbor, whose home was on the way to Readfield, a town to the north, reported that at 6:30AM—2 hours after the earlier sighting—a man and a woman knocked on his door and though he didn’t answer, he overheard the woman, quote, “talking excitedly” on his porch. After a short wait, they left in their automobile, and early speculation suggested that the mystery man was headed north. Searchers found a discarded pencil and piece of paper on the road, and police took it into evidence.
Escape by boat? (Day 1)
While some investigators were tracking down the automobile leads, others were searching for boats. In the middle of the night, around 2:30AM (prior to the fire), a 75-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth Griffin, whose windows overlooked the southern end of the lake, remembered seeing a canoe cross the lake from near the Hayward cottage and head north toward the other end of the long skinny lake. Shortly after her sighting, during the early morning hours, while the fire was raging, a fog developed on the lake that would have made it difficult for anyone to make another sighting, and on the other hand it would have made it difficult for the man to navigate the lake.
Later on in the day, a man from Readfield—the town that sits on the north end of the lake—discovered that his canoe was missing. He had gone fishing the night before and docked it in its usual place, and it was gone.
Another missing boat was the one that belonged at Aida’s cottage. There was some speculation that it could have been consumed in the fire—by the time the fire was finally extinguished all that remained was the chimney, part of the icehouse, and the woodpile. Though there was some uncertainty, tracking down the two missing boats remained a top priority.
The lead detective believed that the killer made his way to the cottage by boat and made his escape in the same way. He believed that because of how swiftly the town responded to the fire, it was unlikely that the killer could have made it away unnoticed on foot.
Emma’s son-in-law involved? (Day 1)
Emma’s son-in-law, Harold Sprague, was one of the first suspects that police interrogated. He had fought with Emma 2 years prior, and their conflict was known to close friends and family. He had been arrested on the charge of “failing to support his child”, and he believed that Emma had turned him into authorities. But when police went to his home in Oakland, they learned that the two had reconciled, and just last month, in April, they had spent 3 amicable weeks together. He and his wife were each other’s alibis: they were in their home from 8:00PM Tuesday night to 5:00AM Wednesday morning. Harold traveled to Winthrop to be with his mother-in-law on that first day, visiting her in the hospital, and he told his wife on the trip over that he would be glad to have her live with them (considering her grave condition).
Emma’s condition (Day 1)
Emma’s condition continued to worsen and Dr. Badget and Chief of the State Highway Police, Fred Sanborn, stayed by her side all day, hoping to learn something more of the killer before her death. In her brief moments of consciousness, Dr. Badget asked if she had any words for her daughter, and she said no.
Children help the cause (Day 1)
In the afternoon, children were released from their schools early, and they, too, wanted to help and participate in the search. Many of them went to inspect the smoldering rubble—some were driven by morbid fascination, and others were simply eager to help. One of the boys, a 14-year-old lad named Lloyd, discovered a key ring near the ruins of the cottage. The keys were held on a series of hooks connected by a large ring, commonly enclosed in a leather pouch, similar to the ones jailors have on old-timey Westerns, but the leather pouch had been consumed in the fire. He turned over the evidence to police, hoping it might lead them to the killer.
Theories on motive (Day 1)
Newspapermen reported popular theories of motive that the Winthrop citizens discussed.
Some believed that the crime was the work of a local, weak-minded man who was obsessed with Aida, and that when his advances were rebuffed, became enraged, killing Emma and kidnapping Aida to later assault and dispose of her body.
Others believed that the mystery man’s motive was money—that he took valuables from the cabin, and was holding Aida for a ransom, knowing of her wealthy relatives in Boston and of her own wealth.
The killer was amongst them (Day 1)
Little did they know, the killer was amongst them. At 7:00AM, he responded to a knock at his door by the searchers, who were requesting help at Emma’s cottage. He walked among them, he searched the ashes, he proclaimed, quote, “it was a terrible affair”, and he was loudest in his condemnation of the “cowardly would-be assassin who confronted two helpless women in their home at night, in a lonely camp, where no others were within call.”
While he was out maintaining the charade, Aida lay dead in the upstairs bedroom of his cottage.
The man called his wife, who was living with her mother and her stepfather in Saco, and asked her to meet him at their cottage at Old Orchard Beach later that night. He left Winthrop by train and called again that evening to let her know that he was coming by street car to the cottage. He explained to her that he had discovered Aida’s lifeless body and moved it into his cottage to protect another. He told her that robbers, whom he knew, had ambushed the women—shooting Emma, and killing Aida—and that he was afraid to return to Winthrop. She encouraged him to go and ‘face the music’.
He slept the night in their beach cottage, and after a grapefruit breakfast, returned to Winthrop the next morning to discover that the search continued to pick up steam.
Visitors come and take souvenirs (Day 2)
As news of the incident spread through the gossiping mouths of townspeople and visitors alike, the curious began gathering around the burnt remains of the former lakeside cottage. Some travelled for miles to see the macabre “tourist attraction”—even bringing a picnic and making a day of it.
For some, the sight of the burnt ruins wasn’t enough for their morbid curiosity, and so they sifted through the ashes to pick out a piece of debris to take home. Partially burned library books and warped bits of metal were among the most coveted mementos.
All that remained standing of the cabin was a leaning brick chimney that was ready to collapse from a strong gust of wind. Wooden logs that were once perfectly stacked lay strewn and cluttered on the ground, and in the center of it all laid the ashen remains of a once-beautiful cottage.
Authorities set up a rope barrier around the site, but even that didn’t deter the most brash visitors, so policemen stood guard, stopping the flow of souvenirs.
Top brass involved, law enforcement response (Day 2)
The top politicians and law enforcement officials in the state were all personally involved in the case. The governor of Maine, Ralph Brewster, and the Attorney General, Raymond Fellows, met to discuss the case and made plans to offer a similar $1,000 reward.
Arriving from Boston was James R. Wood, a revered detective, who was commissioned by the state of Maine to take the lead in the case, joining and directing the efforts of Winthrop police and state highway police.
The Attorney General later met with County District Attorney Frank Southard and the lead investigator to discuss strategy.
The Attorney General issued this statement:
“The State Constabulary has summoned every man available for service. We have engaged the services of Boston detectives who have been successful in numerous important criminal cases in New England and the county attorney and myself have been making constant efforts to keep the detectives and police actively engaged while the scent is fresh, and we hope to announce within a short time that the mystery has been solved.”
The state’s highway patrolmen visited every automobile shop within 20 miles of Winthrop armed with a snapshot of Aida, hoping that one of the men had seen her.
According to the newspapers, practically every cottage along the shore of Lake Maranacook was searched and the lakeshore patrolled with boats. Even talk of a plane…
A scent dog named Carine was summoned from Boston to join the search as well. While authorities wanted Deeka—the then-famous Doberman-Pinscher whose keen work had just helped to solve a famous case in Vermont—he was on tour and unavailable to work on Aida’s case. Instead, Deeka’s sister, Carine, and her handler, made the trek up to Winthrop with the hopes that she would be able to save the day.
Aida’s canoe found (Day 2)
One of the questions from the prior day was resolved by Aida’s uncle, Elsworth Hayward, who was carefully sifting through the camp’s remains when he picked up a blackened strip of brass. He recognized it right away as having been fastened to the keel of the canoe as protection for the wood and exclaimed, “there is the brand-new screw that I put in myself.” As for the canoe itself, nothing but ashes remained.
Even though her canoe was eliminated as a potential escape-craft, an escape by water was still deemed a likely possibility.
Emma’s condition (Day 2)
Emma remained in a, quote, “dangerous condition”, on Thursday. She had fleeting periods of consciousness, and her doctor, though initially pessimistic about her recovery, said she showed some signs of improvement later in the evening.
A psychic tip (Day 2)
Also on Thursday evening, a large group of men—seven car-loads (according to the Bangor Daily News)—went to a particular intersection, about 7 miles south of Winthrop, called Leeds Junction, and waited. At a few minutes before 9:00PM, one of the men asked for complete silence… and so they all sat and listened carefully for any signs of movement. They had been given a tip that Aida would emerge at 9:00PM and run into their waiting arms. But by 10:00PM, after an hour of waiting, they gave up the ghost. Their psychic must have made a mistake.
The killer’s movements (Day 2)
The killer remained in Winthrop all day, taking part in the searches for Aida in the afternoon, shoulder-to-shoulder with the good citizens of the area. Perhaps he even visited Emma in the hospital; luckily she was guarded.
In the evening, he called on a neighbor for dinner. He and the Bearses sat down for supper and he said that “it was so lonesome over at his cottage.” He continued, “I’m afraid to stay in my camp alone. I wouldn’t stay there another night for $1,000.” He asked if they would give him a room, and they agreed. He said that he would return the next day to stay with them that evening.
To avoid another night at his camp, he again, traveled away from Winthrop for the evening, going to Augusta and spending the night at the YMCA.
Day 3 of the search
When Carine arrived the next day, she was taken to the ruins and given some articles of clothing with Aida’s scent. Perhaps it was because of the overnight rains, but Carine was uninspired and merely circled and sniffed the ruins. A victory tour for the Hayward case wasn’t in Carine’s future.
Emma was also gaining strength, and showed considerable improvement with her health. The newspaper said she “took nourishment” for the first time since she’d been shot 2 days prior.
A local man took a state policeman, Bert Fowler, up for a spin in his 2-seater Jenny plane. It was a treat and a thrill for Bert, who had never been flown around before (at a moment when the whole nation was captivated with aviation and acrobatic aerialists). The cruising speed for the Jenny was just 60 miles per hour, a pace slow enough to take a careful look at Lake Maranacook. They swooped and dove, circumnavigating the lake, searching for any sign of Aida along the shoreline. They had hoped to get a view of the lakebed itself in the shallows because of the clear, cool, spring waters from the snowmelt, but the wind was whipping and the lake’s turbulent surface concealed anything that might have been spotted below. After a couple of hours, they called it quits and landed, empty-handed.
Despite Emma’s account of the killer abducting Aida, as time ticked on, authorities began to fear that Aida had been killed and left in the upstairs of the cabin, and consumed in the flames. The heat was so strong it warped the iron range, fused glass, and burned up the bathtub completely. If Aida’s body could be amongst the ashes, searchers needed to find the pieces of her bones buried beneath. But when they began picking and sifting the debris with a sieve to recover Aida, they found nothing—No jewelry and certainly no bones.
At noon, a farmer called the detectives, and explained that he had discovered some blood spots on his property that he couldn’t account for. He also said that his lakeshore would afford a good landing for a canoe. The attorney general, the county attorney, and the lead detective, James Wood, all went to the farm to investigate. There was a substantial pool of blood alongside a path with footprints. They took samples of blood for analysis. There was some speculation that it might not be human blood because there were some quills found nearby that belonged to a missing porcupine.
A new theory, proffered by law enforcement, began to take shape: there was a growing belief that the man that returned to set fire to the cabin may have been a different man than the one who took Aida earlier in the night. Emma, by her own admission, kept her eyes shut the entire time, except for the moment that the killer opened her eyelid himself. If that were true, at least 2 men were involved in the operation. The real killer was paying attention.
Fred Moulton, the prominent Boston businessman, contacted local business leaders, and began to orchestrate a systematic and comprehensive search to be conducted on Saturday (the next day). It would include all of the lake cottages, the woods surrounding the lake, and the lake itself.
The killer knew that the net was closing in, and after participating in activities that morning, he left the area on a train mid-day, but not before telling the Bearses that he would returning in the evening for that room that they promised him.
Shortly after he left, a group of 3 searchers came to his cabin and knocked on his door. There was no answer, so they, too, went to the Bearses to inquire about it. Mrs. Bearse told them that Mr. Kirby would be returning in the evening, and to hold off on forcing the door until his return. They agreed, and said they would be back the next day.
Discovery of the body (Day 4)
It was Day 4, and the comprehensive search, planned by Moulton, was under way. A group of citizens in town were gathered and someone asked, “Has Kirby’s cottage been searched?” The answer came back from the crowd that it had not—he was under no suspicion. Out of thoroughness, though, they decided to check. They found the door locked again, and so they went to the Bearses, who said that Kirby hadn’t returned the night before as promised. A broken promise was all of the ammunition the three men needed to force their way in. Using a hatchet and a screwdriver, they broke in the front door.
As soon as the door was flung open, they were hit with foul odor of death. They began looking around, but didn’t find the body right away: it had been cleverly hidden. The whole cabin was orderly and there were no signs of a struggle. The upstairs bedroom had a bunch of furniture piled on the mattress, as though it were closed up for winter and consolidated on the bed. As they began to remove the furniture, piece-by-piece, they noticed that there was something lumpy underneath, concealed by a mattress pad (called a feather tick). They pulled it off the bed, revealing the dead body of 32-year-old Aida Hayward.
Aida’s tongue protruded from her mouth, suggesting that the killer had strangled her to death. She was dressed only in a pink chemise. Her arms and body were bruised and her head was crushed from behind, likely with a heavy, blunt instrument. It wasn’t obvious when she had died, but it had been at least 24 hours, if not more. In an adjoining room, they discovered the rest of her clothes, neatly folded on the back of a chair. They also found some rope and strips of sheets, likely used to tie her up.
As the searchers took stock of the situation, they were reminded of their encounter with the boarder a few days prior, the first day of the search. Kirby had answered the door and greeted them with a smile. He assured them that he had been living in the cabin for the past few weeks and that there was nothing to discover. “But,” he said, “You are welcome to search the place.” In jest, he added, “if you go upstairs, don’t take my money!” One of the searchers said that as long as Kirby had been there the whole time, it wasn’t necessary, so they passed over his cottage in their search, content that he was above suspicion.
The hunt for Harry Kirby began.
Winthrop’s impression of Harry
The Bearses were the last known people to have seen Harry in Winthrop, and they described him for reporters and law enforcement. He had left around noon the previous day, bidding them adieu but promising to be back in the evening. She described him as in his 30’s, tall, slender, and well-dressed in a brown three-piece suit. Those that knew him described Harry as a fluent talker with the most courteous manners.
The cottage where Aida’s body was discovered, a quote, “modest and inexpensive wooden structure”, was owned by a Massachusetts woman, Jane Gray, and her siblings. Jane had given Harry and his wife permission to use the cottage when she or her siblings weren’t there. Harry had been staying there for a few weeks. If you walked a mile and a half south from the cottage, along the train tracks, you would find yourself where Emma and Aida’s cottage formerly stood.
His wife, Ruby, was known to Winthrop as well. They had lived together up until about 4 weeks prior, when she left the area to be with her family in Saco. Investigators were just as eager to speak with Ruby as they were Harry.
An APB went out to law enforcement throughout New England. He was described as 41 years old, but looking younger—in his early to mid 30’s; five foot eight or nine inches tall with dark brown hair; deeply tanned with olive skin; having a thin face with sunken cheeks; possessing a stubby clipped mustache; wearing false teeth; and occasionally wearing heavy tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles. He was seen with a Norfolk jacket (looks like a bourgie hunting jacket from England), a gray cap, and leather oxford shoes.
The hunt for Harry (Day 4)
Around 9:00AM that morning, Harry had checked out of the YMCA in Augusta, where he had stayed for a second night. He made his way to nearby Oakland, where he went to a barber shop and had his mustache shaved, changing his appearance. He boarded an afternoon train headed to Boston.
The train made a stop through Winthrop in the early evening, and the police were waiting.
They boarded it as it came to a stop. They approached the conductor and gave a description of Harry. They walked the aisles searching for him. Harry even overheard them discussing him. He kept cool as a cucumber, though, and the subterfuge (of his clean-shaven face) foiled the searchers. The police got off, and the train lumbered into motion again.
Earlier in the day, the Winthrop postmaster, Earl, received a postcard with instructions from Harry. In it, he asked him to forward any of his Winthrop mail to Augusta, and the postmaster had even sent some that day. Earl revealed the postcard to authorities, and so officers, dressed in plain clothes, waited in and around the post office in Augusta, hoping that Harry would appear to collect his mail.
Meanwhile, an autopsy of Aida’s body was being conducted by a doctor and a medical examiner. The results were delivered to law enforcement the same day, but kept from the public.
While the search in Augusta for Harry was in full tilt, a tip came in from Portland that a bag had been discovered with the initials H.A.K. at their train station. Portland police searched the bag, and besides some men’s clothes and a set of false teeth (that Harry was known to use), they discovered a keyring with a broken key on it. When the 3 searchers in Winthrop had found Aida’s body at Harry cottage earlier in the day, they had noticed that the front lock been rendered inoperable because a key was broken off in the cylinder. One of the three men managed to recover the key fragment from the lock and brought it to Portland, where it was matched to its other broken half found in the suitcase. Authorities believed that the killer was within their grasp and deployed a plain-clothed detail to stake out the station.
Train line employees explained to police that the bag had been checked at Augusta with the request for it to be unloaded in Portland. The bag had already made it there, and so they assumed that Harry would be arriving on a later train. At midnight, after a long wait, Chief of the State Highway Police, Fred Sanborn, called in 15 motorcycle cops from Augusta as reinforcements, believing that he had Harry cornered, but once again he had eluded detection.
Kirby had passed through Portland on the train on his way south. He had bought his ticket in Augusta under an assumed name, and paid the fare to Boston, but he got off early at Newburyport, Massachusetts, the northernmost city of Massachusetts and an hour’s distance away from his supposed final destination.
As Kirby got off the train at 8:19PM, and his leather shoes struck the Massachusetts ground, he breathed a little easier: he had put a whole state between him and Maine. He walked a quarter-mile to 34 Market Street and asked for lodging, giving another pseudonym, James Johnson, to the proprietor. He explained that he had just arrived and was looking for a room for a few nights. He could tell that the lack of any luggage raised an eyebrow, so he assured her, “I’m not a down-and-outer. I’m the caretaker for an estate in Maine, and I’ve just come from Waterbury, Connecticut. I have plenty of money to carry him me for a spell.” Mrs. Pond agreed to give him a room, and got him set up around 9:30PM. Kirby shut the door behind him, sat down on the edge of the bed, and breathed a sigh of relief. He was free.
Aida’s secret funeral (Day 4)
Just as the sun was rising over the horizon on Sunday, May 24th, Aida’s body was quietly spirited from the morgue to a an undisclosed cemetery in Winthrop. A group of close friends and family huddled, quietly, graveside and laid her to rest, shielded from the prying eyes of reporters and busybodies. They quietly reflected on her brief, 32-year life. She had grown up in Winthrop and was very well-loved by the community, but she never got too caught-up in the social affairs of town. She worked as a bookkeeper at a local gristmill, and was considered quite efficient.
She amused herself with the wilderness of Maine, studying the forest and wildlife, and collecting flowers. Children in town remembered her fondly: she was very generous with her fancy new cottage and would often invite kids to come stay with her during the summer. A friend described her as very determined, and “one of the spunkiest and sanest women I ever knew. She could take care of herself.” She spoke with intelligence and was a great reader. She always had a well-kept appearance, wearing the best of clothes, embracing the 20s fashion, cutting her light-brown hair quite short into a boyish cut. And though she seemed like quite the catch, she had never married. The reverend of the local Methodist Church said a few words and the gravediggers entombed her in the cold black earth.
The hunt for Harry (Day 5)
James Wood, the famous detective, paced the hallways of Harry’s cabin, looking for anything that might lead him to his current whereabouts. The smell of death still clung to the walls. He found a heavy sweater and some other clothes, suggesting to James that Harry was likely traveling light—leaving behind any encumbrances. He was growing impatient and was about to leave the cottage when he glanced over at the hutch that contained the dishware and stopped. The glazed ceramic would provide the perfect surface to leave a fingerprint. With gloved hands, he carefully removed each of the dishes and packed them into crates, preparing them to be shipped off to Boston’s crime lab to be analyzed by fingerprint experts.
Meanwhile, Harry rose early on Sunday morning, and asked Mrs. Evelyn Pond for restaurant recommendations for breakfast in Newburyport. After a satisfying meal, he strolled out into the country for a long walk.
When James Wood returned to town with his forensic treasure, he couldn’t believe the activity. It seemed everyone with an automobile within 50 miles had come to Winthrop that Sunday spring afternoon. Throngs of people were in the town square jockeying for position in front of the downtown meeting hall, called the “Winthrop House”. Investigators had contacted Jane Gray, the owner of Harry’s cottage, the previous day and alerted her of the situation. They asked her if she happened to have a photo of Harry, and to their delight, she immediately produced one of him with a young girl that was identified as Maxine Kirby—Harry’s 3-year-old daughter. The print was enlarged and made into a sign that was placed outside of the town hall, and everyone wanted to see the man who was responsible for the atrocity that had consumed the state of Maine.
The tenor of the crowd had turned menacing and law enforcement was paying attention to the threats of vigilante justice and lynch mobs. They stared at the photo, “fixing it in their minds.” Life imprisonment—the maximum sentence in Maine—didn’t strike the citizens as quite enough in this particular case.
Everyone wanted a piece of Harry.
Inspector Josh Sweetser was trying to track down Harry through a photo of his 3-year-old daughter. One of the other prints produced by Jane Gray was an image of Maxine at Old Orchard—a beach town in Maine just south of Portland. He thought that the terrain surrounding the little girl was distinctive enough that he might be able to find the very spot it was taken. After an all-day search, and many misses, he had found a promising vista. He scooped up a young child who was playing nearby and put them in the spot on the grass where he thought the snap had been taken, and compared the scene in front of him to the image he held in his hand. It was a match! He then canvassed the area and found a young girl who said that she remembered the photo being taken. She pointed out other stops that Ruby had made in the area, and it was from that clue that Josh made his way to Saco and tracked down Ruby, who had Maxine with her, and was living with her mother and stepfather.
In Winthrop, an arrest warrant, with the charges of murder, attempted murder, and arson, was issued for Harry Kirby.
Governor Brewster announced a matching reward of $1,000 for “the capture of the person or persons responsible for Aida’s murder.”
Emma remained in serious condition, but was showing improvement. She took nourishment for the first time since she had been hospitalized, and was more lucid. As not to impede her progress, she had still not been told the fate of her best friend and niece, Aida.
Harry, after a long day walking the countryside, returned to the Ponds at 1:00PM with a local newspaper. A smirk crept across his face as he sat in the sunny parlor and read the extensive coverage about the quest to capture him in the Boston Globe. He chatted up Frank Pond and accompanied him to their horse stables. They spoke at length and Harry won him over, so Frank invited him to join him and his family at church that evening. After the service, Harry continued to share the evening with the Ponds for supper where he told them his supposed life story. He said that his wife and young child had died tragically six months ago, and he was all on his own. Quote,
“Some of us are destined to hardships all their life. At 13, I lost my parents. I have never known a home; nor a father or a mother. I was kicked out into the world at 13, and I have knocked about ever since. I have wished many times that I might die also.”
He fetched a photo from his wallet of him with Maxine, and he contorted his face into rictus of sadness. The Ponds wanted to save Harry. They asked him about his experience at the service where they had even introduced him to their pastor. He said that “he felt better after singing the hymns”. Hope remained.
When Harry retired at 11:00PM that Sunday evening, he slept soundly. He had earned the good will of his keepers. They would protect him.
Harry’s arrest (Day 6)
Evelyn Pond rose on Monday morning and went through her typical morning routine, getting her two children, Florence and Herbert, out the door, and tending to the boarders. She purchased the morning paper and brought it back to the house, where she sat down and started looking through it. On page one, staring back up at her, was the exact photograph that she had been shown the previous afternoon by her new friend and tenant, “James Johnson”, but this image was captioned with an unfamiliar name: Harry Kirby. Could this be the same man?
She stared at the photo for a good ten minutes, vacillating between disbelief and conviction, until she finally decided to phone her husband, Frank, who was at the grocery store. She closed the doors to the parlor and barricaded herself in, positioning chairs in front of the doorknobs to prevent intrusion from an eavesdropping tenant. She called the grocer and asked him to put Frank on the line. He was dubious at first, but he, too, examined the newspaper and couldn’t help but conclude that their tenant, whom they taken an immediate liking to, was the man being sought by authorities.
He told her to stay put, and he called the Newburyport police. After a bit of convincing, they took the tip seriously and sent out three officers to the lodging house.
At 9:00AM, Harry heard an assertive knock at his door. He knew what would happen next.
“This is the police! Open up!”
Harry unlocked the door. With absolute composure, he said to them, “I’m the man you’re looking for. I’m Harry Kirby.”
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Winthrop, ME, photograph of train platform in town (Maine Central Railroad) crossing Lake Marancook
Painting of the “Big Pine Point” stop (Emma & Aida’s stop), and the train that connected all the cottages up and down the east side Lake Marancook
Ruins of Aida Hayward and Emma Towns’ cottage
Ruins of Aida Hayward and Emma Towns’ cottage
Aida Hayward and Emma Towns’ cottage, before it was torched
Emma Towns
Aida Hayward
Aida Hayward
Aida Hayward
Emma Towns (leftmost); Aida Hayward (rightmost)
1918 Road Map (Auto Club of Southern California)
1922 model Lincoln Model L roadster, restored (Fred Moulton’s car)
Investigators search the roads near Maranacook for signs of mysterious automobile
Deeka was unavailable because he was on “exhibition”
Restored 1920’s “Jenny” plane
Example of a “Jenny” plane, used to fly over Lake Maranacook in search of Aida
Restored 1920’s “Jenny” plane
The men who discovered Aida Hayward’s body
Gray, aka “Flint” cottage, where Aida’s body discovered
The Gray cottage, where Harry was living
Crowd in Winthrop gathering to study Harry’s photograph
Photo of Harry (modified by artist at Boston Globe)
Photo of Harry (modified by artist at Boston Globe)
Maxine Kirby
Evelyn (left) and Frank (right) Pond, lodging house owners who turned Harry into authorities
The Newburyport officers who arrested Harry Kirby
Sources For This Episode
Newspaper articles
Various articles primarily from Bangor Daily News, Daily News, Lewiston Daily Sun, Lewiston Evening Journal, Lewiston Evening Journal, The Boston Globe, and the Times Herald, here.
Written by various authors including Akilah Johnson, Annmarie Timmins, Bernice MacWilliams, Nancy West, Richard C. Duncan, Roger Small, and Roger Talbot.
Photos
Photos from various newspapers and from MaineMemoryNetwork.
Credits
Created, researched, written, told, and edited by Kristen Seavey
Writing, research, and photo editing support by Byron Willis
Research support by Bridget Fowley