STRYCHNINE CAUSED
RUTH MILLER'S DEATH.
ANALYSIS OF CANDY DEVELOPS
THIS FACT.
No Motive for the Attempt on Life
of the Elder Miller Girl
Has Yet Been Dis-
covered.
Strychnine was the bitter-tasting foreign substance noticed by the Miller children who survived sampling the box of bonbons mailed to Ella Miller, 14 years old, of 634 Cheyenne avenue, Armourdale, Wednesday. Four year old Ruth Miller, after eating one of the candies, fell dead in the throes of a paralyzing agony. The lives of the other children were saved because of the unsavory taste of the sweets.
The candy was sent to the chemical laboratory of the Kansas state university at Lawrence. Yesterday the analysis had progressed at the university to such period as to make certain the identity of the poison employed. It was strychnine. How much of the drug each piece of candy contained has not been determined, but one-twelfth grain of strychnine crystals, the form employed, is sufficient to cause death.
But who committed the deed, and why?
This question was asked and left unanswered a great number of times in the office of the Kansas City, Kas., chief of police yesterday. Detectives Quinn, McKnight, Walsh and Wilson reported finding nothing, after a diligent inquiry into the private life of the Miller family for a possible reason why the little girl, to who the package was addressed, should be out of the way. Apparently she has always been a dutiful daughter, living in peace and harmony with her step-father and well loved by he playmates and friends at the packing house where she worked.
The theory at first held by the officers that some jealous small boy, a sweetheart of the girl, perhaps, had prepared the package and mailed it to her, was explored when the only two boys with whom the little girl has gone anywhere were brought in by the drag net and proved to be the neighbor boys selected by Mrs. Miller once or twice to walk with Ella to a nickel show in the vicinity.
According to Mille last night about 500 people have called at the home to express sympathy yesterday. Many of them offered financial help in locating the poisoner. Among the visitors were a half-dozen girls who worked in the canning department of the Schwarzschild & Sulzberger plant. They were unanimous in declaring no one in their department had sent the bonbons.
"Why, we all loved little Ella," said Artilla Hack, Miami and Coy streets, Armourdale, one of the visitors. "She was just as good as she could be to all of us, and I know none of the girls had anything against her. If they had someone would have been sure to mention it, since she left there a month ago." Geanette Brymer, Seventh and Coy streets, said practically the same thing.
The other children of the Miller family affected by eating candy from the box sent the oldest daughter are out of danger. D r. Zachary Nason, who lives two blocks from the Miller home, and who atended Ruth Miller while she was dying, says they all showed strong symptoms of strychnine poisoning.
"It must have been this drug that was inserted into the bon-bons," said Dr. Nason, last night. "The theory that it might have been arsenic is, in my opinion, absurd, as arsenic is an acid while strchnine is a salt, and therefore their symptoms should be diameteically opposite. The little girl, when I saw her, was rigid in the arms and across the chest. Occasionally she completely relaxed. Lockjaw preceded death by at least two minutes. All these symptoms are those of strychnine poisoning, and not posible after a dose of arsenic."
