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Think “Coke” Fiend Is the 18Murderer of Anna i_Police Are Endeavoring To Run Down Gang of Purveyors of Drug—Experts Say Crime Showed Every Earmark of Siave to Habit.Did a “coke fiend kill Anna Lloyd?This is a question that druggists, pharmacists and physicians, all of whom are familiar with the effects and manifestations of the deadly man destroyer and its vicious substitutes, are asking. It is also a question the police are asking, for they are trying to run down a gang of peddlers of the deadly poisons that masquerade under the cognomen of “cocaine,'’ shortened in the underworld to “coke.”In my judgment a .‘coke’ fiend killed Anna Lloyd.” was the rather startling statement * made Saturday night by a prominent druggist, a member of the Cincinnati Retail Druggists’ association, who prefers ;t0 remain unknown in connection with the story. The bloody nature of the seemingly almost purposeless crime, the ferocity with which it was consummated, the cunning with which the perpetrator has baffled the police, and many other characteristics of the dastardly deed make it seem to me that this Is the only solution of the crime and the others of like nature which have been inflicted on this city. Indeed, it seems to me that the series of murders that have been causing horror in Dayton, O., and that have been developing in other cities may all be traced to the effects of the deadly drW or its several vicious substitutes w’hich the state board of pharmacy has been tryipg to suppress for some time.Some Effects of Drugs.You read the othfr day. I presume, of the man who threw his baby to death. That was a ‘coke’ fiend's deed. It has been told me by men who oqght to know better that’sdme negroes delight to feel the razior enter living flesh and to feel tjie keen dagger penetrate the living organism naturally. I tell you that tills Is not true. It is only the ‘coke’ fiend that-thus delights in ‘darving’ up other men, especially in anger. | have no doubt that the English ‘Jack tl\e Ripper’ was a devotee of the rqaj drug. I believe .that the ferocity of the,Cliicago meat packer who killed and cut up his wife, and the deadly cunning of the Philadelphia physician who kHled his friend and cut uj* the bqdy some .years Hgo were both fiends, to the drug. I believe the deed* of'Carl Hau and the recent crimes of Belle Gunnesa and Ray Larrtphere to have been due to the drug or a substitute, which* 1* the more likely. Larrjjher£ and (hat negro woman. I have not the slightest doubt, were filled with ‘cokav‘“Now in the local case, pursued the physician-druggist, “if any ordinary murderer had committed that crime it would have been more open, more liableto detection, more likely to have been : accompanied by the inevitable ‘clew’ the police are so fond of talking about. A ‘coke’ fiend leaves no clew. The pubiic-nt-large has no conception of the devilish cunning of the devotee of the drug. Some conception of the trickiness, the utter unreliability and the moral Irresponsibility of the ‘morphine fiend' has trickled into the consciousness of the people after a century or two of familiarity with the stuff. But the cunning of the ‘morphine fiend’ by the side of that of the ‘coke fiend’ is as the slow wit of the bulldog by the side of the keen perception of the bloodhound. There Is no similarity whatever.No Conception of Volume of Traffic.‘‘Neither has the public any conception of the volume of illipit traffic In cocaine a and its related and kindred drugs and substitutes. In every city the size of Cincinnati it is peddled on the streets under the very noses of the police and detectives, mostly by negro men w'ho 1 carry it secreted about their persons, j % Every woman of the town knows w'here f she can get the drug at a moment’s j notice; These peddlers are kept going by unprincipled druggists and pharmacists, r •many of them slaves to the habit them- i selves. There is a gang in this city and the drug fraternity and the state hoard of pharmacy are after it. I hope it will 8 be run down. sYes. I believe Anna Lloyd was killed ^ by ‘coke’ in some fiend. These fiends, when long besotted, are incapable of lustful passion, and that explains the ab- ^ sence of the usual evidence of that mo- b live for killing the victim In the early ( stages of the slavery the lustful craving , is marked. Later It is killed. This also explains features of other murders caused by the drug.. If the-poHce desire to find tlie mufderer of* Anna Lloyd let them get the confirmed ‘coke' fiends together and I t they will very likely have the murderer Y among them. But even then he will have j. to be caught.’’State Board Wars on Drugs. jAt the meeting of the state board of pharmacy at Columbui the past week one license was revoked fdr the sale of coke” substitutes. The board. which r ; is fighting the traffic to the bitter end 2 and which. had made sixty successful cases, had let tip oh the prosecution of 1 the cases until tlic legislature should * meet. In the sixty successful rases the i past year the board had spent $2,500 and fines were laid for $G,00fi. Unfortunately, tHe courts exhibited leniency to the extent of four-fifths of the fines and only about $1,200 has been paid into the treasury of the bdard; . eA committee of the board called hn lt;Governor Harmon Wednesday to ask his f good offices in getting an appropriation ~ to prpseeute t»he cases that will come up in the future, as war is again declared I T on the traffic by the board. Governor t Harmon v^as astounded, as will be the t people of Ohio,-w hen h.e. found that in the many years the board has been in ex- j c istence it has never asked an appropria- ; 1 (ion, and has not received one, being seit sustaining. It is likely that Governor s Harmon wdll recommend a fund for fighting the drug habit, and that the e board of pharmacy will begin the war of * extermination within a very few weeks, j
Newspaper Details
Cincinnati Commercial Tribune
Cincinnati, Ohio, US
Sun, Jan 16, 1910
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Cincinnati A.
OH, USA 11 Oct 2024
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