M. J. Rourney: The Salesman Suspect
By Dr. Edgar V. Epperly
He looked like a hard character to the night clerk of Villisca, Iowa's Ingman Hotel when he asked for a room on Friday night, June 7, 1912. She and her daughter agreed it had been a good idea to tell him they were full even though several rooms remained unrented.
Perhaps used to such treatment, the bearded and mustached fellow trudged on down the street to the Fisher Hotel. Not as squeamish as their competitor, its management was happy to rent him a room. Carrying more of a pack than a suitcase, this stranger with a distinct foreign accent settled down for the night.
Fisher Hotel
Saturday morning found him out on the street trying to sell European lace to several housewives. In addition to selling, he seemed very interested in the community and its buildings. He stopped several people and questioned them about public buildings, and prominent citizens in town.
With two railroads serving the town, such itinerant peddlers were common in Villisca. He would have evoked no notice had it not been for his eccentric behavior and the fact that eight people were hacked to death with an axe the same weekend he came calling.
His mildly unusual behavior assumed a sinister cast after the Villisca axe murder was discovered on Monday morning, June 10, 1912. Gossip and speculation swept the town, but this itinerant, now known as the Bulgarian Lace Salesman, was nowhere to be found. Apparently he left town before the murder was discovered. Most assumed he had taken a train out of town Sunday night or Monday morning.
An alternative explanation was that he had walked out of town. At about 7:30 a.m. Monday morning, perhaps an hour before the murder was discovered, H. W. (Uncle Harv) Willett left his farm northwest of Villisca and headed for town. Approximately 60 rods east of Harv's farm, he passed a "pretty hard looking case" walking west. This stranger was carrying a bundle of clothes or rags and Harv thought him to be a tramp. In fact Harv thought nothing of this chance encounter until he arrived in Villisca and found the town hysterical about the just discovered murder.
Riding or walking, the Bulgarian Lace Salesman was no longer in Villisca. Consulting the Fisher Hotel register, it was determined the stranger had signed his name as M. J. Rourey, although some read the signature as M. J. Kourey. Try as they might, police could not locate this suspect. In August of 1912, local authorities were contacted by the Chicago, IL, police who suspected that one of their fugitives might be the man in question.
A Bulgarian, Gelesko Enchevv had confessed to a brutal axe murder in Chicago. This murder involved the decapitation of a female school teacher in her home in 1910. Mr. Enchevv had confessed, been ruled insane and incarcerated in a mental hospital. Hardly settled in the hospital he escaped, and was now at large. Trying to be helpful, the Chicago police speculated that their escaped killer might be Villisca's Bulgarian Lace Salesman and mass murderer.
In late summer 1912, another traveling salesman volunteered that he knew M. J. Rourey who had been selling his lace in Chariton, IA, just the week before. Villisca authorities made hurried inquiries but, if he had been in Chariton, he was no longer there.
Like so many "leads" in the Villisca ax murder mystery investigation, this suspicion died with a whimper. In February, 1913, following a tip from J. Bader, a furniture polish salesman, Mr. Rourey surfaced living placidly in Pattonsburg, Missouri. He did sell lace door to door, he did have a foreign accent, he had been in Villisca the weekend of the murder, but he had left on Sunday before the murder had been committed.
It was obvious that he was an established citizen of Pattonsburg and had no criminal record nor history of violence in his past. Other than a special interest in public buildings and prominent citizens, who he probably viewed as potential customers, there was nothing to link M. J. Rourey to Iowa's most sensational true crime.
Enchew/Enchevy has always intrigued me. A bonafied, bark-at-the-moon crazy fella with a history of violence. He supposedly claimed to have been killing people across the midwest before his incarceration. Not sure when he escaped though. Obviously prior to June 9, 1912 but how about September of 1911?
Posted by: Inspector Winship | October 15, 2009 at 09:53 AM