Murder at the Kirkwood Hotel in Des Moines

Officer Clarence Woolman

Alcoholism, disregard for the rules, and incompetence played into a double murder at the Kirkwood Hotel early in the morning on March 25, 1911.

Officer Clarence Woolman was assigned to take his best friend and prisoner, Dr. Harry Kelly, to the State Inebriate Hospital at Knoxville. They stopped for the night at the Kirkwood Hotel in Des Moines and had a few drinks. The next morning, one man lay dead with a bullet in his brain, and the other on the floor in a nearby saloon shot full of holes.

 

The men checked into the Kirkwood at 9:30 p.m. By rights, Woolman should have taken Kelly to the county jail—standard operating procedure was to lock up prisoners when traveling overnight. Woolman disregarded it because he didn’t want to hurt his friend’s feelings.

 

Kelly wasn’t the person you’d expect to be an alcoholic or a murderer. He grew up in an excellent family. His father managed the Standard Oil office in Council Bluffs. He was a “crack athlete” who played halfback for the University of Nebraska football team. Before his drinking got out of hand, he was considered the top doctor in Council Bluffs, maybe in the entire state.

The next morning, a gunshot echoed through the hallways of the hotel. Kelly called the desk at 6:30 a.m. and said his friend had been injured. 

 

Dr. Ross Huston and the desk clerk, Homer Jones, rushed to the room. They found Woolman lying on the bed, covered in blood. He had a “gaping .38 caliber bullet wound under his right ear.” Several empty beer and whiskey bottles littered the room.

What happened next depends on the account you read. It’s like the Des Moines Register and The Des Moines Daily News reported on entirely different crimes.

 

Kelly crept down the stairs, past the night clerk, Homer Jones, and out the door. He made his way to Schoen’s Saloon on Third and Walnut Street, where he asked the porter, Louis Gates, for a drink. When Gates turned to get it, Kelly pulled his gun and ordered him to open the cash register.

 

“Give me what money is there!” he screamed. “Quick. Quick. I must have it.”

 

Dr. Harry Kelly

Gates pretended to get it, then slipped through a door to the cellar. The Des Moines Register said Joe Balka hid away with him. The Des Moines Daily News said Kelly stuck the barrel of his gun in bartender Joe Balka’s face and ordered him to pour him a drink. Balka grabbed the gun’s barrel and told Kelly to “cut out the rough stuff.”  

 

Kelly asked two customers if they had any money, then hurried out the door and down the street to Chiesa’s Saloon on Third and Court Avenue. 

 

When the bartender refused to serve him, Kelly pulled out his pistol and fired five shots at the man. Four bullets hit their target, mortally wounding E. W. Sterzing. He died at the hospital less than an hour after the shooting.

 

“I was sweeping in the rear when Kelly walked in and demanded money,” said Frank Aldera, the porter. “He asked for money, and when refused, became abusive. Ed asked him to leave.” Kelly opened fire. “I sprung on his back, and Ed and I knocked the gun from his hands. Ed fell to the floor then, and the murderer grabbed me and threw me in the corner.”

 

Kelly dropped the gun and walked to the Popular Restaurant on Fourth Street and Court Avenue, where police officers arrested him. He was arraigned two hours later before Judge Van Lew and pleaded not guilty.

 

Two days later, Kelly sobered up enough to talk about what happened.

 

“During the night, I vomited on the bed. I was first to get up and went to the table to get a drink. Woolman was mad, probably because of the mess I made.”

 

He said, “’What are you doing, you drunken son-of-a-bitch?’ That made me mad. I drew my revolver and shot him, then walked out.”

 

Kelly glanced around the room with an addled expression on his face. 

 

“I killed the barkeeper because I had to. He would have killed me. Even if he hadn’t, he made me what I am. He sold me the booze. Booze did it. It will do the same to any man who monkeys with it. I can’t remember everything that happened.”

 

“I did not want to kill Woolman. He was my friend. I had to do it. For Sterzing, the barkeeper, he got what he deserved. His business killed me. I had to kill him.

Who would have thought I’d come to this?”

 

John P. Mulvaney, Dr. Kelly’s attorney, mulled over his defense. “Between you and me,” he told the Des Moines Daily News, “there is no doubt of his insanity.”

 

At Kelly’s trial in December, the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter and a special interrogatory stating he was insane on the morning of March 25 when the shootings occurred. Kelly received an eight-year sentence in the Anamosa Reformatory.

 

His attorney moved to ask that the verdict be dismissed because, under Iowa law, an insane person cannot be convicted of a crime.

 

Newspapers around the state were outraged by the verdict. The Ottumwa Courier said when Kelly is released, “he will be free to kill as many more people as he pleases.” The Newton Daily News suggested, “his brain will once more become diseased, and he will indulge in periodic sprees, and he will continue to be a dangerous man in society.”

 

The Burlington Gazette took it as a mandate for wannabe killers. “If you contemplate doing murder, gentlemen, liquor up first.”

 

Dr. Harry Kelly was declared sane on January 9, 1915, and released.