N.J. Sleuth Won World Fame
For ‘Out-Thinking Criminals

The old man is gone.

Death yesterday wrote a sad finis for a man who seemingly bore a charmed life through an amazing career that began with the capture of a horse thief and carried his fame as a man hunter to the far-flung seven seas.

Ellis Parker was the direct antithesis of the storybook detective in both his appearance and his crime detection methods, but his results compiled a record that few, if any, fiction or real-life sleuths have equaled.

The old man was not of prepossessing appearance, if, for instance, you take Philo Vance as a criterion for fashionable detectives. He was short, quite bald, went without coat or tie whenever he could, and might need a shave. His language was not Oxford’s best, but it was always expressive; his accent was the peculiar twang of the Jersey pine belt. A pipe, venerable and uncommonly strong, was a constant companion. But he had pale eyes which were remarkably alive: a hunter’s eyes, if you will.

His inner office was not imposing. He desk was always piled up with a miscellany of letters and records, as were the antiquated filing cabinets. A cuspidor was always handy, in plain sight. In one corner was an old burlap bag that contained parts of a skeleton with a peculiarly fractured leg, the only clue to an unidentified murder victim of many years ago.

He was a man of simple tastes and a firm believer in the axiom that justice was inexorable. Even in the humiliating final chapters of a glorious career - imprisonment because he pursued a course that, however erroneous, he felt was justified to save the life of a man he felt was innocent - you could not accuse him of bitterness. In one of his last letters, he wrote a friend: "I hold no malice toward anyone. I believe in God and always will. I have never lost my faith".

Now this resume may seem a bit maudlin because this reporter, as did probably every reporter in the East, knew him well. But bear in mind that conviction or no conviction, 8000 names from Burlington County alone were only recently affixed to petitions requesting a Presidential pardon for the old man.

Ellis Parker cleared practically every murder case that came his way - and the sum total amounts to more than 300. The homespun sleuth’s activities were not confined to Burlington County. First, other counties began borrowing him to help clear up puzzling crimes. His fame spread to other states, and later he was to win praise from Scotland Yard and the French Surete. Once California and Greek authorities asked his aid, and with the information given him in the mail he solved their problem for them.

He thought faster than the criminal he sought, which is the hometown way of saying that psychology played a major role in his detection work. His methods were not always orthodox; 18 years ago he virtually kidnapped a murder suspect and proved the man’s guilt.

Probably the good fold wondered a little at the international tribute that has been heaped upon the old man for he remained in Mt. Holly when he might have had bigger and better positions. He knew practically every resident of Burlington County and called them by their first names. His office was open house to visitors of every walk in like and he held court, as it were, in the Elks Home where he spent a great deal of his leisure time.

He held fear and contempt and disregarded the dangers that sometime walked at his shoulder. Once he narrowly escaped an assassin’s bullets. Another time he risked his life to save that of a guard attacked by a condemned man.

Among the earlier of his most famous cases was the solution to the slaying of Honest John Brunen, carnival man, at his Riverside home in 1922.

Charles Powell, of Camden, was arrested as the "trigger man". He turned state’s evidence and implicated Brunen’s widow, Doris, and her brother, Harry C. Mohr. Powell told Parker he was hired by Mohr to kill Brunen.

Powell confessed he stood in a cellar door in the rear of the Brunen home and shot Brunen at close range as he was seated at the window reading a newspaper. Mrs. Brunen was acquitted of the murder. Mohr was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Powell was given 20 years in state prison and later was removed to the State Hospital for Insane.

Another murder solved by Parker was that of Broadway Brown, wealthy club man of Cinnaminson Township. Adam Szewczak, Eddie Adamski, and Solomon Lutz were indicted for the crime after a year’s investigation. Adamski was captured in NY after escaping from the Burlington County Jail. Lutz was a NY barber. Their arrests led to Szewczak’s implication. He was found serving time for a bond theft in the Eastern Penitentiary, Philadelphia.

The men were attempting to break into the Brown home when the young executive of a Philadelphia business house returned home in his car. He questioned the men and it was charged Szewczak fired the fatal shot. Adamski turned state’s evidence. Lutz denied any part in the crime, claiming he rented his automobile to the two other men for the trip to Brown’s home.

Szewczak was found guilty and given life imprisonment. Adamski, who pleaded guilty, was given from 15-20 years in state prison. Lutz was acquitted.

Parker narrowly missed death when he boarded a trolley car in 1916 at Rancocas Park to search for John C. Kariy, who was wanted for a theft. Kariy began shooting in a crowded car and missed wounding Parker and several passengers. He escaped at the time.

But in 1930 Kariy was arrested at Riverside with two other men for carrying concealed deadly weapons. They were accused of robbing several women of money. Parker remembered Kariy as the man who did the shooting on the trolley car and was given seven to 15 years in state prison by former Judge Charles A. Rigg.

Charles Brown was sentenced to be hanged in 1901 for the murder of Washington Hunter, an aged toll-gate keeper. A few minutes before he was to be executed he struck at two guards with a bludgeon he fashioned from lead pipe he ripped from his cell. They knocked the weapon from his hands as he fled into the prison courtyard. The man raised an ax to strike at the keepers and Parker ran up from the rear and knocked it from his hands. A few moments later Brown was executed under heavy guard.

Another murder he solved was the murder of Robert Evan, a sailor, whose wife Hattie, and three marines were convicted of the crime. James Mercer Davis, former Ocean County prosecutor, called Parker in on the case. Evans and a friend were beaten to death when they returned from the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Another sensational case Parker handled was the murder of Matilda Russo, 12, of Moorestown. Louis Lively, known to have killed a woman in Philadelphia, was hunted for days for this crime. He finally turned up at Vineland to shoot it out with the police. He was captured after wounding Patrolman Florentino. Lively was electrocuted for the crime.

Twenty years after Henry Rider, known as the "cranberry king" was shot in a holdup at Atsion, Parker caused the arrest of the last of his assailants in California.

In another case Parker was asked by the prosecutor of Southern California County for assistance in solving the murder of a school teacher at Stockton, Calif. The slayer, a Greek, had deserted his family in the state of Washington, murdered the teacher and fled to his native country.

Parker had a friend, a professor at Princeton University and former ambassador to Greece. He consulted him as to the legal proceedure. The man was captured in Greece and given the death penalty there without extradition to this country.

Billy Sunday, famous evangelist, paid a tribute to Parker on May 1, 1930, while holding a six weeks evangelistic campaign at Mt. Holly. Sunday ranked Parker with Sherlock Holmes and said he was a "great and good man" and invited the sleuth to a front row in his tabernacle at King and Grant Streets.

At a Testimonial Dinner given at Medford Lakes on May 2, 1934, George de Benneville Keim, then secretary of the republican national committee said "there is only one Ellis H. Parker. His success is routed in his devotion to fair play."

Judge Harold B. Wells, former common pleas judge of Burlington County and now a member of the Court of Errors and Appeals, said: "Parker possesses the human touch. I was on the bench in the county. I was once baffled over a case of a boy stealing a bicycle. Ellis said it would be wrong to send the boy to an institution. 'What he needs is a bike,' said Ellis. We took up a collection, Ellis contributing, and the boy was never back in juvenile court."

Robert Peacock, assistant attorney general, who was Parker’s secretary in 1900, said: "Rufus Jackson passed Mr. Parker on the way to the gallows and paused to say: ‘In two minutes I will be dead. You have been fair to me.’"