Thursday, Nov. 1, 1917
Delbert Marcellus of Rock City Falls comes home from work this evening to discover a body lying in a pool of blood on his back doorstep and his 17 year old daughter missing, The Saratogian reports.
“Marcellus was apparently so scared that he didn’t stop to see if the man was dead or alive, but ran down to the village where he told his story,” a reporter writes. Recognizing the body as John Foles, who works at E. M. Brown’s paper mill, Marcellus notifies Brown, who phones a doctor to go to the Marcellus house. Dr. Cornthwaite of Ballston Spa declared Foles dead at the scene from a gunshot wound to the left temple.
Saratoga County Sheriff William J. Dodge discovers that both Pearl Marcellus and her friend, Margaret Seeley, have vanished. Learning that they had a date scheduled with two Greenfield Center men, Dodge and his deputies trace the girls from Middle Grove to Lake Desolation to Saratoga Springs, while Deputy Parks and Dr. Cornthwaite go directly to Greenfield Center.
Passing through Middle Grove, Cornthwaite sees a crutch sticking out of car window and reminds Parks that Margaret Seeley uses a crutch. Parks pulls the car over and orders William Donohue and Fay Potter out of the car. “At first the men were inclined to put up a fight,” a reporter notes, but they prove more compliant once more deputies reach the scene.
Seeley and Pearl Marcellus are inside the car. On their way to the county jail, Seeley whispers in Parks’s ear that “Pearl did it.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Marcellus exclaims. Asked who she’d killed by Coroner R. B. Castree, she answers, “John Foles. I shot at him because he wouldn’t get out of the house.”
According to Marcellus and Seeley’s story, Foles showed up at Pearl’s house at 4 p.m., while the girls were taking a nap, to invite Pearl out for a buggy ride. Already having a date with Donohue and Potter, Marcellus turned him down. An angry Foles then broke open the front door and confronted the girls in Pearl’s room.
Only partially dressed, Marcellus ordered Foles back downstairs to the kitchen. After dressing, she pushed him out the kitchen door and tried to brace it shut, but Foles forced his way back in. Taking a revolver from a drawer, Marcellus warned him, “You get out of the house or you’ll get something you don’t want.”
“I won’t get out ‘til I get ready,” Foles answered. Marcellus killed him instantly with one shot, changed out of her bloodstained clothes, and left with Seeley for their date.