Ref: Town and Country Newspaper Pennsburg, Montgomery County, PA Saturday - March 25, 1905 FORMER PENNSBURG RESIDENT CONFESSES THE EBERT MURDER (PART 1 OF 2) In order that he might pay a board bill, free himself from debt and be in a position to marry his fiancee, Miss Bertha SHAFFER, James H. WILSON (picture), a bricklayer of Allentown and a former resident of Pennsburg murdered John P. EBERT (picture), the old pretzel baker of the same city on the evening of February 24. WILSON, who is only 22 years old, has made a confession to the police, in which he says that he did not at first intend to kill the old man, but merely to "knock him on the head and rob him." Then he was afraid that he might be recognized, and thought he had better finish the job while he was about it. Nearly a month has elapsed since EBERT staggered into his house on evening and gasped that he had been shot by an unknown assassin while he was looking about his yard to assure himself that everything was locked up for the night. No suspicion had attached to WILSON. It was his frantic and unneccessary efforts to clear himself that put the charge at his door, and then all his cunning, all his boldness, deserted him. He broke down and told all he knew. Confession To Robbery I broke into Jonathan KISTLER's store between 9 and 9.30 on an evening several weeks ago that I do not remember. I think it was on Thursday. I climbed in through a rear window alone. I took two boxes of cigars, a revolver, cartridges, a lead pencil and a writing book. I am a fellow that spends my money freely when I have it and then half the time I have none. I took the revolver over to Mattern's dump this morning and threw it out. I shot three shots into the air last Saturday evening to scare the people. I ran up stairs where I board and hollered that some one wanted to shoot me. I had the revolver at home. I had the revolver at home most of the time since I robbed KISTLER. At other times I had it in my pocket. I had it in my inside coat pocket the night my girl felt it. Confession To Murder I was so hard troubled for money and half crazy with worriment that I could not pay my board and being a frequent visitor at John EBERT's store where I noticed he had considerable money I went to John EBERT's store with the intention to rob him. I didn't go to shoot him but when I was there waiting for John EBERT to leave the store I saw I was discovered and to defend myself I shot him. I would have told this some time anyhow and if on my deathbed. His Fatal Mistake If he had not made the fatal mistake of telling the police that he had been shot at shortly after midnight Sunday morning in exactly the same way as EBERT was shot at; if he had not said that he never owned a revolver, it is likely that the murder of EBERT would have remained a mystery for all time. But WILSON devised a fake to protect himself from an imaginary danger. "I had been spending Sunday evening with Miss SHAFFER," he said, "and on my return home I took a walk into the yard to see that everything was all right. I was within a few feet of the back door when a man stepped out of a shanty and fired three shots at me. The man escaped out of the side gate." That threw WILSON into the limelight. Within a block of the scene of EBERT's murder, he had been set upon in exactly the same way, and by an assassin who tallied with the vague description given by the dying baker of the fellow who shot him. It was noticeable, also, that WILSON, in describing this assassin, described himself. Suspicion Becomes A Conviction At first it was believed that WILSON was a notoriety-seeker, or that his mind had been temporarily unbalanced by reading about the EBERT murder. His tale was so halting and his statements so conflicting and artificial that the disgust of the police soon turned into suspicion, and suspicion into conviction. Chief of Police EASTMAN examined and re-examined WILSON, who said positively he did not own a revolver. Police Sergeant KNAUSS learned from Miss SHAFFER that he had recently been carrying a large pistol, and that since the EBERT affair he had acted like a different man. "I think he felt so bad about it that it preyed on his mind," said the girl. "He didn't even like to talk about it." On the strength of the girl's story, the police searched WILSON's room. The most suspicious thing they found was two boxes of cheap cigars. WILSON was out of work, and they thought it strange that he would by buying cigars by the box. "I bought 'em of EBERT just a few hours before he was killed," said WILSON. Arrested For Robbery It turned out that EBERT did not sell cigars of that brand, but Jonathan D. KISTLER, whose store, in the vicinity of the EBERT home, had been robbed a few nights before the murder, did sell them. It was from KISTLER's store that a revolver was stolen on that same night, subsequently found in a clump of bushes and giving unmistakable evidence of having been discharged. The police have believed all along that this revolver was the one used by the slayer of EBERT. KISTLER identified the cigars as his. Thereupon WILSON switched his story and said he had bought the cigars from a tall man answering the description of EBERT's murderer, and that he paid $1.10 a box for them. From this was only a step to fastening the KISTLER robbery on the bricklayer. He was arrested by order of Mayor LEWIS at 6.30 o'clock Monday evening, and when charged with the robbery, he said: "Give me time to think it over." They put him into a cell. Half an hour later he said he was ready to talk about the robbery, but when he got to talking the robbery and the murder were so unextricably jumbled in his mind that he finished by making a breast of both of them.