Statewide County AZ Archives Obituaries.....McClain, Mrs. Ed 1905
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
D. Joshua Taylor http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00006.html#0001358 and Elizabeth Burns  July 17, 2005, 2:25 pm

Arizona Republican-Feb.  3, 1905
Mrs. ED MCCLAIN
February 3, 1905

Detective W.D. Sims left last night for Des Moines, 
Iowa with Ed McClain, the fugitive from justice, after 
rather an eventful week in Phoenix. WHen asked yesterday 
the nature of the crime for which McClain was held to the 
grand jury, Mr. Sims said it was constructively highway 
robbery.

McClain's habitat was in the questionable resorts of the 
city and to begin with it is suppoed he had rolled a man 
of a few dollars, intneding to join his wife in Omaha at 
once.  When he got to the depot platform in Des Moines, 
he accosted a stranger and asked him the time.  The 
stranger pulled out a fine watch, the works of which 
cost $65 and told him the time.  Instantly McClain 
seized it and told the stranger that he was a 
detective and he was certain that was stolen property 
and he would confiscate it.

The stranger was too much appalled by McClain's nerve to 
hardly protest while McClain was fading away in the darkness. 

After reaching Omaha and making a little money, McClain 
sent the necessary amount, together with the pawnticket 
from the pawned watch, and asked that the watch be 
forwarded to him by express.  This insturction was 
carried out but the same train that took the watch 
also took a detective and when McCLain got the watch 
out of the express office, the detective got McClain.

The funeral of McClain's wife or Bertha Belmont, as she 
was known in Phoenix has not yet taken place but it is 
understood that services will be held today.  McClain 
did not appear to take a great deal of interest in her 
death and he was not especially desirous of staying to 
see her buried.  Yesterday he asked Detective Sims to 
take him to her trunk. He said he believed there would 
be found in it a pawnticket for diamonds valued at
$140.  The ticket was not found but there was something 
else confirmatory of the fact that she and her husband 
had been in Des Moines.  The detective had said that he 
had for some time shadowed Mrs. McClain on the streets 
of Des Moines and he had furnished a description of the 
clothing she wore at the time.  Such clothing as the 
officer had described was found in the trunk.

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