ARTHUR DAY’S SISTER

Her Reported Death Bed Confession of Complicity in the Murder

The Terrible Story-Mrs. Quigley is Alleged to have Told her Mother-

She Helped Day Throw his Wife Over the Precipice.

(Buffalo Courier)

[Welland Telegraph, 27 March 1891]

On the 18^th day of last December Arthur Hoyt Day was hanged at Welland, Ont., for the murder of his wife Desire, whom he pushed over the high bank at the Canada side of the river at Niagara Falls. He maintained an air of bravado to the last, and also to the last declared his innocence of the crime. A witness at the trial was his sister, Mrs. Quigley, of Rochester, who accompanied Day and his wife to the scene of the tragedy. Interest in the case was revised here by the publication in Friday morning’s papers of a dispatch from Rochester saying that Mrs. Quigley was dead, and that in her dying hours she confessed that she assisted her brother in the murder, and was equally guilty with him. Later reports quoted Mrs. Quigley’s mother as denying that such a confession was made. The Democrat and Chronicle of Friday had a long chapter on the case, from which some parts may be republished as interesting.

That paper says that Mrs. Day, the mother of the executed man and of Mrs. Quigley, confided the fact and details of her daughter’s confession “to a gentleman whose veracity is unquestioned and whose name will be announced if necessary.” She told him this:

“Mary kept moaning and tossing all the morning and kept looking at one spot on the wall opposite the bed. She would look at this spot half an hour at a time without taking her eyes off it. I asked her what she was looking at and she said that she could see Arthur there, and then all of a sudden she burst out crying and said: “Oh, mother, I have got something on my mind that I must tell you.”

“I quieted her as well as I could and then she said: “It wasn’t all Arthur’s fault that he killed Desire. I was just as much to blame as he was, and we went to Niagara Falls to get her out of the way. When we got her to the edge of the bank we decided to push her over. I pulled her dress up over her face and helped Arthur push her over the bank. I can’t die without telling this, and now I feel so much better.”

“Then,” continued Mrs. Day, “I got right down on my knees and asked the Almighty to forgive her, and before I was done praying she was dead. I knew that Arthur died a happy man and I think that Mary was a good deal happier for telling me what she did. It was hard work for her to talk and it took her a good while to tell me what she did.”

After some knocking Mrs. Day came to the door and the reporter was admitted. Mrs. Day is a small woman, apparently over 60 years of age, with white hair. She was not all pleased at being awakened and was inclined to be very uncommunicative. “Mrs. Day,” said the reporter, “I understand that Mrs. Quigley confessed to you that she helped Arthur Day push Desire over the bank at Niagara Falls. Is that true?”

“It’s none of your business whether it is or not.”

“That don’t make any difference. Did Mrs. Quigley confess?”

“Who told you that she did?”

The name of the informant was mentioned, and then Mrs. Day said sharply, “What business has he telling things that I told him?”

It was intimated that that was another matter, and that the question was whether or not Mrs. Quigley confessed. “How could she confess when she was so sick. She was sick three weeks before I knew anything about it, and I went down there last Saturday. She was so sick that it was hard to understand what she was trying to say.”

“Did she confess?”

“Young man, this is late at night and I want you to get out of my room. I don’t want any truck with reporters or detectives or any of those people. I’ll never tell you whether Mary confessed or whether she didn’t. Arthur died happy and so did Mary.”

In letters written just previous to his execution, Day charged his sister with the responsibility of the crime, alleging that it never would have occurred if she had not been there.