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| Jesse Tuman. (Muscatine Journal. December 16, 1920) |
Sometime in the middle of August 1902, violence came to a lonely patch of timber a few miles northeast of Muscatine.
Jesse
Tuman and his wife , Martha, lived there in a small cabin, away from the city
and largely out of sight. Newspapers described the place as isolated,
surrounded by woods and reached by a road that saw little traffic. Tuman was familiar
enough around Muscatine, but his home was another matter. Out there, a person
could disappear from view.
And
that appears to be exactly what the killer counted on.
The
first sign that something was wrong came when Jesse Tuman was discovered badly
injured inside his cabin. He’d suffered terrible blows to the head, apparently
from an ax. His skull was crushed, but he was still alive.
Then
came another discovery. Martha Tuman was missing.
Searchers
eventually found her body in the timber, roughly a hundred yards from the
cabin. She’d been attacked with an ax. The newspapers described a brutal scene
and quickly concluded that whoever had attacked Jesse had also killed Martha.
It
was one of the most sensational crimes Muscatine had seen. And Jesse Tuman,
barely alive, was the only known witness.
Police hoped that Jesse would stay alive long enough to name his attacker.
For
several days, that possibility hung over the investigation. Newspapers followed
reports of Tuman’s condition, waiting to see whether he would regain
consciousness and tell authorities what had happened in the cabin.
He
never did.
On
August 19, the Muscatine Journal reported that Tuman died
without giving investigators the information they desperately wanted.
That
changed the case immediately. Instead of having a surviving eyewitness,
investigators had two dead victims, an isolated crime scene, and no simple
account of what had happened.
There
were plenty of theories. There was also plenty of gossip.
One
early suspect was a man named Williams. Newspapers referred to him as someone
who’d recently been around the Tuman place and who had disappeared about the
time of the murders. Investigators tried to determine where he’d gone and
whether he had anything to do with the killings.
But
the case against him was anything but straightforward. At one point,
authorities believed they might have found Williams. A man fitting the
description was located, questioned, and investigated. But he wasn’t the man
they were looking for.
That
pattern—promising lead, excitement, disappointment—became a recurring feature
of the Tuman investigation.
Then
investigators began looking more closely at Jesse Tuman himself.
Tuman
didn’t to be appear wealthy. He lived simply in a cabin in the woods. But
according to the Muscatine Journal, appearances were misleading.
Martha Tuman. (Muscatine Journal. December 16, 1920)
He was believed to have had substantial cash. On August 22, the newspaper ran a large headline:
“TUMAN
HAD $1,000 — VALUABLE PEARLS.”
A
thousand dollars was a considerable amount of money in 1902. The newspaper
reported that Tuman was known to carry or possess money and that he also dealt
in pearls. Freshwater pearl hunting was then an important activity along the
Mississippi River and its tributaries, and a good pearl could be worth serious
money.
That
suggested robbery might have been the motive for the attack.
If
somebody knew Tuman had cash and pearls hidden around the cabin, the isolated
location would have made him an inviting target. Kill the Tumans, search the
house, and then disappear before anyone realized what had happened.
But
even that theory had problems.
No
one knew exactly how much money Tuman possessed, where he kept it, and what, if
anything, was actually missing. Investigators searched the property and tried
to reconstruct his financial dealings.
There
was enough evidence to make robbery plausible. But there wasn’t enough to prove
it.
Then
there was the dog.
One
of the stranger clues reported in the days after the murders involved a dog
that had supposedly been seen swimming across the river several times around
the time of the crime.
The
August 22 Muscatine Journal gave the clue prominent treatment
under the headline “DOG MAY TRACE MURDERER.”
The
theory seems to have been that the animal might have followed—or attempted to
follow—the person who left the Tuman place. If investigators could determine
where the dog had gone, perhaps they could reconstruct the killer’s route.
It
wasn’t much of a clue. Just a dog swimming around in circles.
The
newspapers were full of similar clues. A stranger had been seen. Someone had
left town. A man resembled the description of Williams. Someone knew something
but wouldn’t talk.
Every
rumor offered the possibility of breaking the case. Most led nowhere.
By
August 26, the investigation had taken another turn.
The Muscatine
Journal announced: a clue concerning the Tuman murder had been found
through boys who had apparently seen or encountered a man connected in some way
with the case.
The
man’s identity was reportedly known to someone in South Muscatine, but the
newspaper withheld his name while investigators pursued the lead.
Authorities
questioned witnesses and attempted to sort reliable information from rumor. The
article makes clear just how chaotic the investigation had become. People were
traveling to the murder scene. Curious visitors wandered around the cabin and
surrounding timber. Hundreds of people visited the property.
That
presented an enormous problem. The crime scene was becoming a tourist
attraction.
People
walked through the woods, approached the cabin, and picked through the
surroundings. Whatever physical evidence the killer might have left behind
risked being disturbed, moved, or simply carried away.
Modern
crime-scene procedures were still decades away. In 1902, the investigation
depended heavily on eyewitness descriptions, questioning, local knowledge, and
the ability of officers to follow one rumor after another.
And
the rumors were multiplying.
Muscatine Journal. August 29, 1902)
On August 29, local authorities had brought in an experienced investigator, Charles Gartland of Davenport.
Gartland
visited the Tuman property, examined the cabin, and walked through the woods.
He interviewed people connected with the case and studied the leads already
collected by local authorities.
He
believed the killer could still be found, but also recognized the difficulty of
the investigation. Too much time had passed. Too many people had been through
the scene. And too many stories were circulating.
The
mysterious Williams remained part of the investigation.
According
to the newspaper, Williams had been around the area and had told people
conflicting stories about himself. Reports placed him in different locations,
but establishing that any particular Williams was the man who’d been
at the Tuman cabin proved difficult.
Gartland
had descriptions, stories, and possible sightings. What he didn’t have was the
man. Then the trail went cold.
Then,
in 1904, a name surfaced again.
Williams.
This
time the man was thousands of miles away.
Norman
Williams, also referred to in some newspaper accounts as Dan Williams, was on
trial in Oregon for the murders of two women there. His case attracted
attention because of the brutality of the crimes, and because details of his
appearance resembled descriptions of the mysterious man sought after the Tuman
killings.
On
June 14, 1904, the Muscatine Journal ran the headline:
“MAY
BE Williams.”
Below
it:
“MAY
BE THE TUMAN MURDERER.”
The
theory was tantalizing.
Could
the mysterious Williams who had disappeared after the Muscatine murders have
been Norman Williams, the accused killer now sitting in an Oregon courtroom?
Photographs
and descriptions were compared. The physical description seemed close enough to
keep the authorities interested. But resemblance wasn’t identification.
Even
the Journal acknowledged the weakness of the evidence.
Memories were nearly two years old. Witnesses were being asked to compare a
photograph with a man they had seen briefly long before. The case was
circumstantial.
Still,
investigators had something they’d lacked in 1902:
A
real man named Williams. And this Williams was accused of murder.
Ten
days later, the story became even bigger. On June 24, 1904, The Courier reported
that Norman Williams had been sentenced to death at The Dalles, Oregon.
According
to the paper, Williams had traveled extensively through the Midwest and the
West. His whereabouts during the summer of 1902 became especially important. If
investigators could place him in or near Muscatine, the coincidence would
become much harder to dismiss.
The
newspaper reported that letters and information had been exchanged between Iowa
and Oregon authorities. Sheriff Stuart of Muscatine was among those examining
the possibility.
Then
came an especially provocative detail.
The
Oregon murders had occurred in August 1902, and Williams was believed to have
been within roughly sixty miles of that crime scene later that month.
The
Tuman murders had occurred in Iowa on August 18.
The
implication was chilling: perhaps Williams had committed the Tuman murders and
then traveled west, where he became involved in another murder case.
The
newspaper openly entertained that possibility. But it was still a theory.
By
June 1904, Norman Williams had been convicted in Oregon and was facing
execution. That created one last hope for Muscatine investigators.
Maybe
a condemned man would talk.
The
June 24 article suggested that Williams might confess before his execution. If
he had killed Jesse and Martha Tuman, perhaps there was no longer any reason to
keep the secret.
Muscatine
waited. But there was no confession. No eyewitness identification that
definitively put Norman Williams inside the Tuman cabin. No recovered murder
weapon tied conclusively to him. No stolen Tuman property found in his
possession. And no physical evidence connecting him to the scene.
What
we have instead is something messier—and in some ways more interesting.
An
isolated cabin in the woods. Two people attacked with an ax. Jesse Tuman lingered
for days, unable to tell anyone who struck him. Martha Tuman dead in the
timber. And money and valuable pearls that may have supplied a motive.
A
mysterious man named Williams who apparently disappeared. Boys who may have
seen something. A dog swimming the river. False sightings. Rumors of
confessions. Crowds trampling through the crime scene. And a professional
detective brought in after the trail had already cooled.
And
then, nearly two years later, a convicted murderer in Oregon whose name, description,
and movements seemed close enough to revive the entire mystery.
Whether
Norman Williams actually killed Jesse and Martha Tuman is uncertain. Without a
confession, there was no way of knowing.
But
by 1904, Muscatine had found a man who looked disturbingly like the killer it
had been searching for.
The
problem was proving it.
Five
years later, the Tuman murders were still unsolved. Then another man turned up
dead, and suddenly the old case was alive again.
Harry
Jones was murdered near Fairport in December 1907. He’d been beaten to death in
his home. Police suspected William Van Winkle, a man who’d worked for Jones and
had also known the Tumans.
The
similarities got people talking.
Both
crimes happened in isolated homes. Both were brutal. Robbery may have been the
motive. The Journal even reported that Van Winkle had returned
home around the time of the Tuman murders with blood on his hands. He said he’d
been cleaning fish.
That
was about as solid as it got.
Still,
the theory had legs. Maybe the mysterious “Williams” hunted in 1902 wasn’t
Williams at all. Maybe he’d given a false name. Maybe Van Winkle had killed the
Tumans and walked away.
It
was another good story with little proof. Norman Williams had filled the role
three years earlier. Now it was Van Winkle. The names changed. The problem
didn’t. Police still didn’t know who killed Jesse and Martha Tuman. Just that
it wasn’t William Van Winkle.
That
didn’t stop them from going down the rabbit hole every time a murder was
committed nearby. But by 1915, mentions of the Tuman murders got slimmer. After
1920, they were a historical footnote. Remember when. And then they were gone.
Completely.
The
1902 murders of Jesse and Martha Tuman are another Iowa cold case.
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