DORA McDONALD.

MILLION-DOLLAR GAMBLER'S WIFE ARRESTED FOR MURDER.

Webster Guerin Murdered February 21, 1906—The Arrest of Dora McDonald for the Murder by Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge and J. F. Daugherty a Few Minutes After the Tragedy.

Spectacular Case—Battle Bitterly Waged.

Important Dates in Mrs. McDonald's Life Tragedy.

Important dates in the trial of Mrs. Dora McDonald:

February 21, 1907—Webster Guerin shot to death in room 703, Omaha Building, where he was closeted with Mrs. Dora McDonald.

March 5, 1907—The Coroner's jury returned an open verdict, failing to find Mrs. McDonald responsible for Guerin's death.

March 30, 1907—Mrs. McDonald released from the County Jail under bonds of $50,000.

August 9, 1907—Michael McDonald died, reconciled to his first wife through the efforts of the church.

August 12, 1907—"Mike" McDonald's funeral, one of the largest ever known, held.

January 20, 1908—Mrs. McDonald placed on trial before Judge Brentano.

January 25, 1908—Jury completed and sworn.

February 11, 1908—The jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

Judge Theodore Brentano

Webster S. GuerinDetective Clifton R. Wooldridge

Assistant State's Attorneys Edwin S. Day and William A. RittenhouseCol. James Hamilton Lewis and P. H. O'Donnell

Sam BerkleyMichael C. McDonald

Dora McDonald

The murder of Webster Guerin occurred on the morning of February 21, 1906, at his office, room 703 Omaha Building, 134 Van Buren street.

Detectives Clifton R. Wooldridge and J. P. Daugherty were on their way to see Guerin about a complaint made against him when they ran into the shooting. They had been there before, but were not able to find the man. Under the name of Fisher, Guerin had another office in the same building. The complaint was from Mrs. G. Boynton, 903 East Fifty-fifth street, who said she had been forced into buying a picture frame through the promise of the managers of the Harrison Art Studio that they would enlarge the picture free of charge.

Upon reaching the building Detectives Wooldridge and Daugherty heard a pistol shot ring out which sounded as if coming from the upper story of the building. Springing into the elevator, they soon reached the top floor, where they were directed to room 703, where a number of the tenants of the building had already gathered. Stretched upon the floor lay the body of Webster Guerin with the blood oozing from his mouth and a bullet wound from a 32-caliber revolver on the left side, just above the heart; the bullet had passed through his lungs and caused a hemorrhage; from his mouth came nearly one-half gallon of blood.

When Wooldridge and Daugherty reached the side of Guerin he was past human aid.

No Witnesses of Killing.

There were no witnesses of the killing of Guerin. He was in his office with Mrs. Dora McDonald. Several persons heard a shot, and a moment later the glass door was broken and the head of Mrs. McDonald came out.

The condition of the studio, in room 703 of the Omaha Building, shows that a violent quarrel took place between Guerin and Mrs. McDonald. Mrs. McDonald left her residence shortly after breakfast. She arrived at the building about 11:45 o'clock. Guerin expected her, for he told his office boy, Thomas Hanson, who lives at 265 West Ohio street, to leave the room and not come back until 1 o'clock. Before the boy left the room Mrs. McDonald entered and the two immediately began quarreling, it is said. Guerin shouted to Hanson to leave and nothing more was heard until the shooting at 11:50 o'clock.

Persons and Places Involved in the Killing of Crayon Artist Guerin by Mrs. "Mike" McDonald.

MRS. M. C. McDONALD WEBSTER S. GUERIN ROOM IN OMAHA BUILDING IN WHICH SHOOTING OCCURRED. DETECTIVE WOOLDRIDGE IN CHARGE. THE McDONALD RESIDENCE 4501 DREXEL BOUL.

Lorenzo Blasi, who lives at 73 West Ohio street, and who is employed in room 608 of the same building, heard the shot and the sound of breaking glass. He was in the corridor on the seventh floor. He hurried to the scene and on the way heard the glass breaking again and a woman screaming: "He shot himself! He shot himself!"

Woman Cut by Broken Glass.

When Blasi reached the studio he found Mrs. McDonald with her head partly thrust through the broken glass. Her face was bleeding from cuts. In her hand she held a revolver. She was trying to break more of the glass with her revolver and escape.

A moment later Eric Allert and Charles B. Williams, who work across the corridor, rushed out to Blasi's aid.

Mrs. McDonald was pulled through the door and the revolver was secured. In the office, men found Guerin lying dead in the room leading off from the main part of the office.

A torn picture and some hatpins were on the floor. There were finger marks on her throat.

When Dora McDonald recovered consciousness she shrieked: "Oh, God! Get a doctor; he has shot himself."

Where the revolver may have been at that time it was difficult to say. Several witnesses said that it was lying at the right side of Guerin, who was dying. Others said that the woman held it in her hand, waving it above her head as she screamed out: "He has shot himself."

Who this strong, handsomely garbed woman was who had either witnessed a suicide, committed a murder or participated in an accident no one knew, but she was hurried off to the police station by Detective Wooldridge.

"Daddy, oh, daddy, forgive me!" she kept screaming out. She was recognized, however, and it was found that "Daddy" could be none other than the big gambler and political boss, Mike McDonald. So they sent for Mike, and he gathered into his arms the woman who in that moment broke his heart and sent him to his grave in sorrow.

An inquest was begun before Coroner Peter J. Hoffman in the Harrison Street Station on March 1, 1906. After five days an open verdict was returned, in which the jurors declared themselves unable to determine the cause of the death of Guerin.

The Coroner's jury consisted of the following named persons:

Joseph Willis, 43 Cass street; Frank O. Borhyar, 6142 Madison avenue; William Merker, 263 Seminary avenue; William C. Hollens, 6418 Rhodes avenue; David A. Smith, 3843 California avenue; George F. Cram, 4166 Drexel boulevard.

On March 16, Municipal Judge Newcomer went to the jail hospital, where Dora McDonald, still in bed, was formally arraigned and held on a charge of murder. Two weeks later she was indicted by the Grand Jury.

All of the evidence so gathered was embodied in the report of the Coroner, and the names of the witnesses were thereto attached, all of which were made public at the time. The State and the defense secured a copy of the same.

Mystery Too Much for Coroner.

All the additional evidence and the preparation of the case was made by the State's attorneys, William H. Rittenhouse. Edwin S. Day, Frank Comerford, City Police Attorney, and other officers. All the names of new witnesses (some twelve or fifteen in number) and the evidence were concealed from Detective Wooldridge, and at no time was he present, or did he hear to what the witnesses would testify. Therefore, he had no knowledge of any new facts when the case was called for trial.

The mystery of Guerin's death proved too much for a Coroner's jury. More than two weeks after the artist was slain the Coroner's panel returned an open verdict. It merely found that Guerin had died from a bullet wound in a manner which the jury was unable to determine. This same verdict Colonel Lewis sought to introduce at the trial in Judge Brentano's court. Such a move was new in criminal annals, and it was some time before the court decided that it should be ruled out.

Mrs. McDonald was meantime transferred to the County Jail from the Harrison Street Station. She was broken in health and a confirmed invalid. Two persons, however, were faithful to her, Mike McDonald and Miss Amanda Beck, her nurse.

Friends Get Busy Quickly.

A few hours after the tragedy of Webster Guerin all the influences and machinery at the command of Mike McDonald were brought to bear to save the life of Dora McDonald. A. S. Trude, one of the greatest criminal attorneys in Chicago, was employed, besides several other noted lawyers, to defend Dora McDonald. Mike McDonald's political friends soon became active. Everything was done to gather evidence in Dora McDonald's case, and everything was done that could be done to suppress any evidence that was injurious to her.

There was one witness who was greatly feared, and that was Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, who made the arrest.

Several days after the shooting A. S. Trude, Mike McDonald's attorney, met Wooldridge in the Criminal Court and shook hands with him. He said that he was very glad that Wooldridge was interested in the case for one reason, for he knew he would get a square deal. He also stated that there was another reason why he was sorry that Wooldridge was in the case, because he had too many eyes and too many feet to be on the opposite side of any case in which he (Trude) was interested. This view was shared by Mike McDonald and his friends, who became active to get Wooldridge out of the way.

Mike McDonald first paid a visit to John M. Collins, then General Superintendent of Police, and one of his warm personal friends, and Frank Comerford, City Police Attorney. What occurred in that office will never be known, unless Collins chooses to make a statement, as McDonald has since died.

Detective Wooldridge was called to the office of John M. Collins, General Superintendent of Police, and told not to talk to any newspaper men or anyone else about the McDonald case. He was further told not to make himself too officious, and not to be too active in the case.

Several days later he was again called to Chief Collins' office and told that Frank Comerford, then acting as City Police Attorney, and a warm friend of Mike McDonald's, was to take charge of the case, so that he need not bother himself further with the matter.

Mr. Comerford became very active, securing the names of all the witnesses and all evidence to which they would testify, together with other facts. All this matter eventually found its way into the hands of the defense long before the trial.

Mike McDonald and his friends thought that Wooldridge would become active again in the case. Therefore Mike proceeded to get busy himself. No one seems to know the ins and outs of the case, but it is nevertheless a fact that soon after the election of April, 1907, Wooldridge was transferred from the office of the General Superintendent of Police, where he had served since 1889, to the Cottage Grove Avenue Station. No reason was assigned for this transfer.

Guerin's Life Story.

Webster Guerin, who lived at 655 West Harrison street, was well known on the West Side, where he was born thirty years ago. He kept a haberdashery on West Madison street a few years before the murder, but left it to go to California. On his return he went into the picture business. Guerin was a tall, splendid-looking fellow more than six feet in height.

Guerin was known at the offices in the Omaha Building as Louis Fisher, and it was under that name that he operated the Harrison Art Company.

Dora McDonald Divorced Wife of "Sam" Barclay.

Dora McDonald, 35 years old, was the divorced wife of "Sam" Barclay, a former professional ball player and Chicago saloonkeeper. They had one son, Harold Barclay, who was later legally adopted by "Mike" McDonald, and who was at school in Florida at the time of the murder. He was 15 years old.

She had separated from Barclay shortly prior to her divorce and had been on the stage for a short time under the name of Mme. Alberta. She was married to Mike McDonald a week after her divorce and was taken by him to his home at Harrison street and Ashland avenue.

Beauty of West Side.

Dora McDonald was one of the beauties of the West Side in her day, and many admirers hovered about her threshold. The lights of the midnight hours charmed her then, and she dashed off to marry Sam Barclay, a professional baseball player.

Into that home came Michael Cassius McDonald. He was a gambler and a politician and a man of great wealth.

For the second time his wife had left him; run away, people said, with a man who had been a guest at their home.

Mike was lonesome. He saw the bride of Sam Barclay and loved her. He dined with her, and perhaps he paid for her divorce trial. At least she separated from Barclay and when Mike went a-wooing again he won this pretty woman.

In a west side home of some pretensions Mike established his new wife. He thought so much of her that he sent his sons away when she could not agree with them. He gave her money and finery and servants and carriages, and thought that she ought to be happy.

Boy of 14 Enters.

Webster Guerin lived across the street. He was a boy of attractive manners and he won the affection of Dora McDonald.

Slander gives one reason for that affection; the woman gives another.

Stole Him as a Boy, Slew Him as a Man, Says Archie Guerin.

Archie Guerin, Webster Guerin's brother, told how Mrs. Dora McDonald had taken a violent fancy to Webster when he was a boy of 14, and Archie 13, or thereabouts; how she would meet them on their way home from school and whisk Webster into the mansion, keeping him two, three or four hours; how she used to waylay Webster on his way home from church; how she followed him through the years until she got the notion that he was falling in love with Avis Dargan; how she put detectives on the boy's trail and sat for hours in a cab opposite the Omaha Building to see whether Miss Dargan entered; how she threatened to shoot him; how she would break out into wild and vehement declarations of her love, wailing that she "worshiped every hair of his head," and that she would kill him before she would lose him.

How she came into the studio on the day Webster was shot, asserting that she had "told that old slob everything" (meaning her husband), and said she was going to New York; how Webster had replied that he was "through with her," to which she retorted, "I am not through with you; do you think I would kill myself without first putting a bullet into your head?" How Mrs. McDonald had requested him to leave the studio, and how he had refused to do so until Webster joined his request to hers; how Archie and the two boys employed in the studio had gone away and left them to act out the tragedy by themselves behind doors that were closed and locked; how Archie had gone to the Windsor Clifton Hotel to meet Harry Feldman, with whom he had a business appointment; how Feldman had become alarmed when he heard that Mrs. McDonald and Webster were alone in the studio, urging Archie to call Webster on the telephone; how he and Archie stepped to the 'phone, called up the studio, and after a gruff "hello" from a policeman got back the staggering news: "Your brother has been murdered."

Mike McDonald Deluded by Wife.

"Mike" seemingly was deluded. He may have had suspicions of his wife, but his suspicions seem to have been quieted by the woman.

Even when Guerin followed her to California she dared to wire Mike: "Web Guerin is coming; fear I shall be compromised; shall I come back?"

It was such a frank admission that the gambler urged her to have mettle. "Stick," he sent back word. "Don't let anyone bluff you."

Things went on this way until the morning of February 21, 1906. Then something happened, the climax occurred and Guerin was shot.

Provides for the Defense.

After the arrest of his wife, "Mike" McDonald announced that he believed in her integrity and declared he would spend every cent of his fortune to save her. The former gambling dictator was almost 70 years old and his health was failing rapidly. Four months after the event he was taken to the St. Anthony de Padua Hospital, where he remained until his death, August 9, 1907.

McDonald was still passing to his death when there crept into his room a little, white-haired woman who had come from Newark, N. J. There she was known as Mrs. Grashoff and a great charity worker, especially in the interest of fallen girls in the Crittenden homes. Years before Mike McDonald had called her his first wife.

Dramatic Meeting of McDonald and First Wife.

By the laws of the church she was still his wife, no matter what the years had brought forth. So Mike took her hand and held it and spoke softly to her in a breath of full forgiveness and passed away. Without the door sat the woman whom he had called his wife—Dora, whom he had won from a husband and to whom he had been faithful until he stepped to the brink of his grave.

This was the last straw that crushed the spirit of Dora McDonald.

The body of Webster Guerin was removed to McNally & Duffy's undertaking rooms at 516 Wabash avenue.

Detective Wooldridge took up the work of gathering the evidence and prepared the case for the Coroner and Grand Jury.

The Grand Jury indictment placed Dora McDonald seemingly beyond the pale of bail, but Mike worked assiduously and finally secured her release from prison on $50,000 bonds. Then Mike became ill and died in St. Anthony's Hospital.

Before he gave way to his broken heart McDonald drew up a will. He set aside a defense fund with which the woman might be given adequate chance for freedom in the court, and left her "such rights and only such rights as she may be entitled to as widow."

Trial Begins.

Mrs. McDonald was put on trial January 20. The jury was completed January 25 and the taking of testimony began at once. The case of the State was made as complete as possible and the defense began an exhaustive array of testimony. The defense, however, came to a surprisingly sudden end. It had been feared that Mrs. McDonald might not live through the trial and there was every desire to have a verdict before she might give way to heart trouble.

The case was heard before Judge Theodore Brentano, and it lasted twenty-one days.

Dora McDonald was represented by Colonel James Hamilton Lewis, Chief Assistant Patrick H. O'Donnell, Attorneys Benjamin M. Shaffner, Frank R. Cain, Gabriel Norden, Clarence Shaffner and Forest G. Smith.

LOVE TRAGEDY JURY HARRY CORCORAN. JOSEPH KOEHLY. ARNE PETERSON. CHARLES R. JOHNSON. HERBERT R. GARN. CHARLES M'GRATH. HUGH H. FULTON. GEORGE W. MILLER. ROLAND F. GRAHAM. JAMES J. NOONAN. OTTO H. NELSON. JOHN C. ANDERSON.

The State was represented by Assistant State's Attorneys William A. Rittenhouse and Edward S. Day.

Names of the Jury.

Harry Corcoran, Joseph Koehy, Arne Peterson, Hugh H. Fulton, George W. Miller, Roland F. Graham, James J. Noonan, Otto H. Nelson, Charles R. Johnson, Herbert R. Garn, Charles McGrath, John C. Anderson.

Packed Courtroom.

With the courtroom packed to the doors and several hundred men and women struggling to gain admission, the actual trial of Mrs. Dora McDonald, widow of Mike McDonald, commenced. Assistant State's Attorney Edward S. Day made an opening statement of the case. Trembling and his eyes flashing, he pointed a finger at Mrs. Dora McDonald and in a ringing voice denounced her as the murderess of Guerin.

"Dora McDonald became acquainted with Guerin, who was about 14 years old. His parents lived a short distance from the McDonald home.

"A friendship between Mrs. McDonald and the boy began, which his mother and other relatives later tried to end. Three years later the McDonalds removed to the Drexel boulevard home, but the intimacy of Webster Guerin and Mrs. McDonald continued.

"At any event, as time passed on, dealing meantime gently with the woman and developing Web into a young man of more than six feet in height, the two were seen frequently together. Relatives of both testified that the two kissed each other; that at times Mrs. McDonald grew jealous, in all apparent intent, over him; that she wrote poems and set them to music to show what seemed to be the very depths of a despairing heart.

"The woman was insanely jealous over him." "He had wandered out from her love into the light of other women's eyes. Driven to distraction by the thought that the boy she had taught to love had grown up to love another, she murdered him."

"No," said the defense. "This woman was the victim of blackmail. First she had been hounded until she gave way to the big youth, and then she had paid him money from her hoard in the hope that she might free herself of him."

Testimony on the blackmail point was clouded by the maze of recrimination, but the State could not deny that Mrs. McDonald had on several occasions given the young man money with which to leave the city, but that each time he had returned "broke" within a few days.

Mr. Day's denunciation of Mrs. Dora McDonald was bitter, but the defendant appeared to take no notice of what the lawyer was saying.

Dora McDonald sat quietly as if in a trance; the bitterness of failure, the weariness of defeat, was expressed in every flutter of her purple-shadowed eyelids as she came before the bar to answer for the murder of Webster Guerin, January 20, 1907.

Dora McDonald presented a pathetic appearance before the jury.

She was dressed all in black. Not a single bit of lace or white relieved the somber effect of her funereal widow's garb. In arranging her hair Mrs. McDonald exhibited a novel idea. The long, deep-auburn strands were braided into one plait and this was wound over her temples in a single coil and fastened with coral pins.

In its unaffected artlessness Mrs. McDonald's entry into the courtroom and her removal of her hat as she sank into her chair was an act of almost girlish grace. Her long black cloak, satin lined, was thrown carelessly on a chair.

When she had removed her hat and cloak she looked squarely into the faces of the jury.