On May 4, 1889, at around 8 p.m., a stranger came to the home of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin, asking for his help. A man had been gravely injured at O’Sullivan’s ice house in the Lake View neighborhood of Chicago,[1] he told the doctor, and his help was urgently needed at the scene. Dr. Cronin had been contracted[2] since that April to tend to any injured workers at O’Sullivan’s ice house, so the call was not so unusual. Neighbors observed Dr. Cronin leave his house with the stranger and climb into an unidentified buggy investor data being pulled by a white horse.[3]
card for Sullivan's Ice Company
Several hours later, at around 2 a.m., Officers Smith and Hayden[4] were on their patrol beat in Lake View when they spied a wagon drawn by a bay horse charging down Clark Street. The wagon was driven by two men and carried a large trunk. About an hour and a half later, Officers Smith and Hayden again saw the same wagon driven by the same men. The trunk, however, was gone.
The two officers thought little more of the incident. Shortly after 7 a.m., a local alderman burst into the Lake View police station to report a disturbing discovery: he had found an aband.