On this date in 1916, Wahpeton newspapers reported the arrest of a young couple on charges of fornication. Authorities suspected something far more sinister and began to question them further.
The couple had checked into the Merchants Hotel as Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair on Saturday, February 5. By Monday, they had left by train. But on Thursday, a citizen's committee arrived seeking information about a baby the hotel proprietor claimed to have seen with them. The train conductor, however, said there was no baby when they boarded.
Rumors spread across the state. Two weeks earlier, a Fargo paper had published a sensational story about Mrs. Arthur Olson, who had been denied placement for her baby at the Children’s Home. The paper reported that she had been driven out of Wahpeton by doctors after failing to pay her hospital bill, and that her husband had been killed. She wanted to board the baby while she worked.
The Children’s Home superintendent wrote a letter to the paper, clarifying that Mrs. Olson’s request was not the Home’s purpose, but that they could assist her in finding a good home for adoption. Olson claimed her baby was born at Dr. Devine’s hospital in Wahpeton, two days after her husband’s death. False information continued to circulate, prompting authorities to investigate.
The couple was questioned separately by the state’s attorney, but their stories didn’t match. The girl said she had given the baby to a cousin. Robert Sinclair, the father, said to press charges. He told the girl he would leave the baby on a doorstep in Wahpeton, but that the child was in good hands and would be returned at trial.
After further interrogation, Sinclair confessed to killing the baby on Sunday in a brutal and depraved manner. He had stuffed rags in the baby's mouth, then used a blunt object, shoestring, and scissors. Sinclair took the body in a suitcase to an outhouse near the train depot, where railroad section men later helped recover it.
Both parents were shown the dead baby. The mother exclaimed, "If I had only known what he was going to do with it!" A doctor testified that the mother seemed loving and that the baby was born at St. Francis Hospital in Breckenridge, MN. She was not charged with murder, though public sympathy remained mixed regarding her knowledge of the crime.
Sinclair was sentenced to 30 years but was released after a year, reportedly in the final stages of tuberculosis.
Dakota Datebook by Lise Erdrich
Sources:
- TWO WEEKS OLD ILLEGITIMATE CHILD MURDERED BY FATHER. The Globe-Gazette, Thursday, February 24, 1916, Page 1.
- MUTILATED REMAINS FOUND IN OUT-HOUSE
- USED SCISSORS AND STABBED CHILD IN HEAD
- MAN CONFESSES THAT HE IS GUILTY
- And is now In the County Jail Awaiting Arrival of Judge Allen to Enter Plea of Guilty – Most Horrible Crime in the History of this Community.
- THIRTY YEARS IN PEN SINCLAIR’S SENTENCE The Globe-Gazette, Thursday, March 2, 1916., Page 1.
- IMPOSED BY JUDGE ALLEN IN COURT TUESDAY
- PRISONER UMMOVED BY SENTENCE -- In Spite of the Fact That He Had Expected Only Ten Years—Other Procedure of the Court Last Tuesday Two Blind Piggers Sentenced.
- SINCLAIR RELEASED FROM PRISON. Milnor Teller, date undecipherable.
- A report was circulated in Milnor today saying that Robert Sinclair of Stirum, who was sentenced to a term in the state penitentiary last spring following the murder of an illegitimate baby at a Wahpeton hotel has returned home. It was said that Sinclair is in the last stages of consumption. --- Milnor Teller
