Haunted Heartland Read online

  Many of these individuals provided assistance during the writing of the first edition of Haunted Heartland and thus their current affiliations may have changed. Any error or omission in the names and institutions is unintended and accidental and will be corrected in future editions if it is brought to the author’s attention. I extend my deepest gratitude for the assistance all have provided with both editions of Haunted Heartland.

  MICHAEL NORMAN

  May 2017

  Illinois

  The Girl on Sheridan Road

  Lake Forest

  Sensational so-called trials of the century probably began in 1901 with the trial and conviction of Leon Czolgosz for the assassination of President William McKinley. Since then, there have been many other American trials that have captured the imagination of millions of readers all over the world, but none of them have the startling legacy that a century-old Lake County, Illinois, murder trial might have: most certainly the trial attracted intense and sensational newspaper coverage from coast to coast, but there is something else that makes it stand out from all others—the young female victim may haunt a section of Sheridan Road in Lake Forest not far from where she died.

  The 1916 trial of William Orpet in Waukegan on charges of first-degree, capital murder had all the lurid details the sensationalist press of the period loved to splash across its front pages: A handsome defendant in young William, a University of Wisconsin college student from Lake Forest. A young and lovely victim, Marion Lambert, a high school senior also from Lake Forest and William’s former girlfriend. And most horrific of all, death came by cyanide poisoning either ingested by the victim or forcibly meted out by the killer. When her body was found, her lips and mouth were black and blistered as if from acid burns. Her death spasms would have been horrifyingly painful to endure.

  All the crime details were wrapped in the surprising location: the quiet, wealthy community of Lake Forest along the Lake Michigan shoreline north of Chicago. Murders of any sort rarely, if ever, took place there, and certainly none in memory connected to the multimillion-dollar estates of the influential families who lived in the area. The fathers of both William and Marion worked for two of them. His father’s employer, Cyrus McCormick Jr., son of the founder of International Harvester, hired William’s elite team of defense attorneys. Chicago clothing magnate Jonas Kuppenheimer employed Marion’s father.

  The young man’s life was on the line. The capital murder charge meant a guilty verdict would send him to the gallows. The Lake County prosecutor promised that the sentence would be carried out.

  Newspapers from coast to coast ran lurid stories with all the juicy details unfolding in the Waukegan courtroom along the shore of Lake Michigan. Readers loved stories about the sins and foibles of the rich and famous.

  But the contemporary twist of this tragic tale is unique. The story of the phantom girl on Sheridan Road has been told now for some time. Witnesses have reported a sudden, disturbing appearance by a diaphanous, barefoot specter with short, brown, curly hair dressed in a long, blue dress along Sheridan Road, not far from where Marion Lambert’s body was found a century ago. That area was known then as Helms Woods, south of the former Barat College, now part of the Villa Turicum subdivision.

  The details of the sightings are similar, including one from a woman who spoke to a Chicago newspaper reporter. Her car’s headlights picked out the woman’s figure along the side of the roadway; she slowed down, thinking perhaps it was an accident victim, someone in distress. She picked up her cell phone to call for help. Yet something was wrong here. The driver could see right through the woman. Her dress was muddy along the hem. Most disturbingly of all, perhaps, was that the specter smiled, revealing a mouth rimmed by burned and blackened lips and rotting teeth.

  The tragic story of young William Orpet and Marion Lambert begins on those wealthy Lake Forest estates. William’s father, Edward, worked for the McCormicks as chief caretaker and groundsman, while Marion’s father, Frank, was head gardener for the Kuppenheimers. Both families lived in homes on the estates and would likely have known one another; one source notes both fathers were members of the North Shore Horticultural Society.

  Marion’s parents doted on her as an only child. Growing up, she was described as an outgoing and vivacious girl with lots of friends and an active social life. Her minister said she was the happiest member of his congregation. Contemporary photographs depict a strikingly attractive young woman with short, dark, curly hair gazing pensively and slightly away from the camera, though in another photograph her broad smile reveals a more mischievous side.

  William was three years older than Marion. Both attended Deerfield-Shields High School. Although the two may have known each other growing up, it seems they did not begin a serious relationship until sometime later in high school, probably during the spring of her junior year, when William was already attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison as a journalism major.

  Having William Orpet as her beau would certainly have made Marion the envy of her girlfriends. He was, to use the parlance of the time, a “dreamboat.” A photograph taken of him during the trial depicts a handsome, serious young man sitting comfortably in front of a shelf of law books. He has on a smart, three-piece wool suit (Kuppenheimer’s?) with cuff-linked sleeves. He has a smooth face, an aquiline nose, penetrating brown eyes, and dark, stylishly cut hair with a slightly off-center part.

  William wrote to Marion often from college. Witty and light in the beginning, his words soon took a more intense, romantic tone. In one that was used as evidence at trial and quoted often, he wrote: “I want to see you, dearest, and want you badly. If I could only get my arm around you now, and get up close to you and kiss the life out of you, I would be happy.” She was still a junior in high school.

  All through the spring and summer, William kept after her, even going so far as to press his romantic intentions on her in public during parties. This was still a time when young women were expected to behave “properly.” That expectation no doubt conflicted with her desire not to lose him. Give in or continue to play hard to get?

  Sometime in late September 1915, William was home from college and asked Marion to go for a drive with him. They ended up at Helms Woods, near the Sacred Heart Convent. He asked her if she would like to go for a walk. Yes, she said. Their stroll ended and they made love in a small clearing where three oaks grew quite close together.

  No one knows of course what exact words were exchanged between the young lovers, but it is apparent by the couple’s later behavior that Marion thought their lovemaking meant she could look forward to a wedding in the near future. William did not see it that way. It was all about his sexual gratification; she was a fling that he had been angling for since they started dating.

  William returned to Madison and his college studies. His letters became infrequent and perfunctory, and he claimed he could not visit her again anytime soon because his college work kept him on campus. What he did not tell her is that he had started dating other women, including a high school chemistry teacher he thought he might want to marry.

  He tried to break it off with Marion, thinking, perhaps rightly, that she was trying to snare him into marriage. She resisted his entreaties.

  In November 1915 she upped the ante. She wrote William that she might be pregnant. He did not believe her. They had sex only that once and he used a condom. But just in case, he got a pharmacist friend to concoct a potion that would terminate a pregnancy and sent it to her. It is not known if she drank it or if, by this time, she knew that she was not pregnant. Her autopsy confirmed she was not.

  Marion Lambert turned eighteen on February 6, 1916, with a big celebration. Two days later, while her best friend Josephine Davis was visiting, she got a telephone call from William. They spoke for only a few minutes out of earshot of Josephine. At the trial her testimony was that Marion appeared troubled when she came back in the room. Josephine later admitted that Marion confided in her, “If Will throws me over
and marries that other girl, I’ll kill myself.”

  That is quite an emotional distance from the cheerful high school senior looking forward to college that her friends, family, and minister described.

  On the very cold morning of Wednesday, February 9, 1916, Marion, wearing her favorite green coat, walked as usual with her friend Josephine to the Sacred Heart station of the North Shore interurban line, where they would catch the train to their high school in Highland Park. But oddly, at the last minute, Marion begged off. She had forgotten she had to mail a letter. She would catch the next train.

  Only one person may have ever seen her again—whoever was with her when she died.

  Frank Lambert showed up at the Sacred Heart station a little before eight that night to pick up his daughter. She had told her parents there was a party she would like to attend after school and they gave their permission. The 8:05 train arrived and disgorged a few passengers, but not Marion. Other trains arrived, stopped for a few minutes, and left over the next hour, but none with Marion. At last Frank went to Highland Park, where he discovered that his daughter had not been at the party; neither had she been at school that day.

  Distraught and feeling helpless, Frank Lambert went home, where he told his wife that Marion was missing. The couple put a lamp in the window, hoping that in some way it would help light her way home.

  The couple spent a sleepless night. When there was still no sign of Marion as dawn approached, her father raced back to the Sacred Heart train station. He would start a search from the last place he was certain Marion had been. Striking stick matches to illuminate his way, he was able to see two sets of footprints leading from the station off into Helms Woods. He decided to wait until the sun was up to continue the search and left for a friend’s house not far away. The men returned in full light and set off to follow the footprints, noticing immediately that one set was significantly larger than the other.

  The pair of footprints meandered through the woods until they neared a small clearing. Frank Lambert noticed a splash of green on the snow beneath three bare oak trees. He broke into a run and found what he had dreaded he might—the lifeless, frozen body of his daughter, Marion. Her left arm lay frozen at an angle, her schoolbooks still held in the crook. The palm of her bare right hand held what appeared to be a trace of a white, powdery substance. Her face was a dreadful sight. Her mouth was blistered and charred black as if burned by acid.

  The coroner’s office wasted little time in performing the autopsy, which was completed by midnight. Marion’s death came as a result of consuming a cyanide and acid mixture, accounting for her burmed, blistered lips and the powdery residue on her hand.

  The Lake County state’s attorney, Ralph Dady, a man one reporter later said had a Lincolnesque bearing, spoke to the growing crowd of reporters in the early morning hours of February 11, 1916. He said that while they were confident Marion was poisoned, they did not know if she committed suicide or if a person or persons unknown forced it on her. However, Dady was certain a man was with her, and when they found that person, they believed the motive would be explained.

  William Orpet promptly became the focus of the authorities’ attention following interviews with Marion’s family and friends. Josephine told them about his call on February 8.

  He was at school in Madison when first a reporter and then the police tracked him down. He expressed surprise and sorrow at the news of Marion’s death. Yes, he confirmed, they had dated, but it was not serious; he had not even seen her recently. But yes he had sent her a letter wishing her luck on her exams.

  William’s story quickly unraveled. True, he had mailed her a letter (which police found still at the post office), but searches of Marion’s bedroom found other letters from him, making it abundantly clear that their affair had been a serious one and that she feared she was pregnant.

  In one letter, he had written: “I’ll try to get down to see you, probably the ninth of February, and will call you up the evening of the eighth. Remember the dates. If everything is not all right by the time I see you, it will be, leave it to me.”

  What else could he have been alluding to except the unwanted pregnancy that somehow he would make “all right” if it was still an issue when he came down to see her? That was enough for the prosecutor. William had been lying about his whereabouts and about his relationship with Marion Lambert, of that he was certain.

  William Opet was arrested in Madison and questioned. Later, he was brought back to Lake Forest, where he was made to walk the route from the train platform to the clearing where Marion’s body was found.

  His answers were a series of falsehoods; in the end he admitted that he had been with Marion the morning of her death but he denied all else. Yes, they had dated, but not any longer; he had been trying to break up with her, thus his letter setting up the rendezvous. He had called her when he got to the train station on February 8, but she could not get away. They agreed to meet the next morning. He spent that night in a greenhouse on the McCormick estate. He had agreed to see her because she was threatening to kill herself if he did not come down. He kept the trip secret and his whereabouts hidden because he did not want his parents to know.

  William said he and Marion had met at the station and gone for a walk. He told her he planned to marry someone else. She pleaded with him, but he was steadfast in refusing her entreaties. He left her in that clearing beneath the oak trees. He heard her sobs but did not turn back, even when she called out to him. The next thing he heard was a scream. He saw her in the snow, her body writhing and wracked with spasms. She died within seconds. He went back to the train station and returned to Madison.

  Prosecutor Ralph Dady did not believe a word of it.

  William had gone to great lengths to hide his trip—he did not make his bed when he left Madison to make it look like he had slept in it; he asked a friend to post some letters from him; he even wore a friend’s overcoat to disguise his appearance.

  Worst of all for William was that a police search of the McCormick estate, where his father worked, uncovered lumps of cyanide. Dady described the haul as enough cyanide to “kill a whole high school of girls.”

  William was arrested and put in a small cell of the central Waukegan jail. Three weeks later he was indicted by a grand jury on charges of first-degree murder. A guilty verdict meant the noose.

  The case had received such frenzied coverage by the Chicago and national press right from the moment Marion’s body was discovered that it became clear early on that the trial itself would attract enormous attention. Both the prosecution and the defense boasted well-known attorneys.

  Over twelve-hundred men (no women served on juries at that time) were questioned over twenty-three days before a panel of jurors was seated. The lengthy jury selection process was an indication that most county residents thought William guilty. The trial began on May 15, Judge Charles Donnelly presiding. It would last nearly two months.

  Dady thought his case was strong, especially with the discovery of cyanide where William Orpet could have had access to it. But his solid wall of evidence soon started showing cracks. Josephine Davis changed her story, probably so she would not have to lie under oath. She tried to describe her friend as happy and optimistic but eventually confessed that Marion had been depressed that William might leave her and spoke of suicide.

  The defense found a classmate who said he had seen Marion alone in a chemistry lab not long before, a lab in which cyanide was stored.

  Although Marion’s parents and other friends testified to her positive frame of mind, Dady knew he had to get William on the stand and under oath to save the prosecution’s argument. He put the defendant on the stand for hours upon hours over four days in that sweltering hot courtroom.

  In the end all he could get was a young man who admitted to all sorts of rotten character traits—coward, liar, seducer, modern-day Lothario—but steadfastly claimed he was not a murderer. Marion Lambert committed suicide, he said. He was there; he heard her
screams of agony as he walked away but did nothing about it. He was a coward as well, leaving her body in the cold, winter woods without the common decency to call for help.

  But what clinched it for the defense was the testimony of several chemists that the cyanide Marion had ingested was potassium cyanide, the type found in her high school chemistry lab, and not sodium cyanide, the type for killing rodents found on the McCormick estate.

  On July 16, 1916, the jury took just five hours to acquit William Orpet of killing Marion Lambert. They concluded there was enough evidence to suggest she had committed suicide.