Note 422 — Chapter XXV · The Shooting of Heney.

Lathem testified before the Grand Jury that about the time the bribe money had been passed he had driven Ruef to the Hirsch Bros. store, where Ruef had obtained a shirt box. He had then driven Ruef to the offices of the United Railroads. Ruef had entered the offices with the box. He had come out later with the box and a package. With box and package he had gone to his own office, and from there, taking the box and package with him, he had been driven to the safe deposit vaults of the Western National Bank.

Lathem did not testify before the Grand Jury until after Ruef had confessed, and then Lathem testified with Ruef’s consent. It is a significant fact that Lathem was sent out of the State the first time not in the interest of Ruef but of Tirey L. Ford, head of the United Railroads law department. Lathem went to Colorado on an automobile trip with the father-in-law of Luther Brown, one of the United Railroad detectives. Lathem’s wife was permitted to accompany them in the automobile. They stopped at the best hotels. Lathem was paid $150 a month.

The importance of Lathem’s testimony lies in the fact that at the time he took Ruef with the shirt-box to Ford’s office, Ford had just received from the Relief corporation officials $50,000 in small currency, which made two large bundles, which were carried to Ford’s office by Abbott and himself and placed in Ford’s desk. This was at the noon hour. A little after one o’clock Ruef went to the Western Pacific Safety Deposit vaults where he then had a deposit box. The cubic contents of this box was not sufficient to accommodate those two bundles. Ruef at that time secured two additional boxes. The cubic contents of all three boxes together was just sufficient to nicely accommodate said two bundles.

The theory of the prosecution was that Ruef carried bribe money in box and package.

At the trial, Lathem stated that the story which he had told before the Grand Jury was not true.