On the evening of May 14, 1893, 15-year-old Alice Leonard left her home to go after the cows. She never returned.

 

A murdered teen. A 123-year-old mystery. Although it reads like a movie script, the case is an actual tragedy that occurred in Lynden Township near Clearwater.

 

Although newspaper reports of the time show conflicting details, the facts tell the essential story. At 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 14, 1893, Alice Leonard (more often known as Alice Hayes) attended the flag raising at Francis Mooney School. Afterwards she returned to the old Hayes homestead where she was living, approximately half a mile away. 

 

Around 6 p.m. that evening, Mike Larkin, a man who was also living in the home, sent her out after the cows, which was her usual chore. Around 8 p.m. the same evening her body was found in the road approximately three quarters of a mile away by two men passing by. (Today the intersection of 155th St. and 3rd Ave.)  They notified Larkin, who went and retrieved her body. The next morning he sent a telegram to St. Cloud asking for the coroner to come.

 

That evening Deputy Coroner N. J. Pinault, County Attorney J. D. Sullivan, Dr. H. A. Pinault and Dr. I. L. Edmunds came to the home to look into the matter. A post mortem was held, and after examining the body the doctors determined it to be “a clear case of murder.”

 

Leonard had received four blows with a dull instrument, one on the back of her right ear, one on the left side of her head, one on the frontal bone above her left eye and one on her left shoulder. The doctors stated the blow on the right side was sufficient to cause death and was the one she had died from.

 

The following day, May 16, an inquest was held at the Hayes home. The witnesses testified to how they knew Leonard, when they had last seen her, how she had been found and how she had looked. All stated she had a happy disposition and had no enemies. No information was discovered that could shed any light on the murder.

 

The May 17, 1893 edition of the St. Cloud Daily Times offered $25 to start a reward for information leading to Leonard’s killer as authorities were at a standstill. The article stated there were circumstances surrounding the case and many suspicious incidents that needed to be looked into further, and demanded something be done. The county did eventually offer a $500 reward for evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of the guilty party, which was never claimed.

 

It was true there were many questionable circumstances, and speculations abounded.

 

Leonard was possibly an illegitimate child; her mother, Julia Hayes, may have married a man named Chauncey Leonard in St. Paul, and after his death remarried a man named Woolrich in Duluth. She passed away three months before her daughter. Her grandmother, Mrs. Ellen Hayes, was raising Leonard. Her aunt, Mrs. Bridget Hayes Smith, and her little girl Nellie, her cousin Thomas Jordan, and Mike Larkin also lived in the home at the time.

 

Larkin first tried to insist Leonard had weak blood vessels and must have had a fainting spell, hitting her head on a rock in the road and leading to her death. According to newspaper reports, he summoned the coroner to quiet neighborhood suspicions. This initiated speculation that Larkin may have been involved in the murder. 

 

Some witnesses stated they saw no blood or marks of violence when Leonard was found, others stated they did. Before Larkin sent the telegram requesting a coroner he covered up all traces of blood left behind on the road. By moving the body he also destroyed any evidence the police could have learned by its position in the road.

 

The two men living in the home whom suspicion had fallen on from the first, Larkin and Thomas Jordan, both had alibis. However, it was rumored that after the murder both Larkin and Bridget Smith were forced to move out by Mrs. Mollie Jordan, who owned the home; they later married. This strengthened speculation that one or both of them may have been involved in the murder.

 

The post mortem showed Leonard had been violated before her death, which supported speculation that another woman may have murdered her out of jealousy. 

 

The area in which she was murdered was away from traveled routes, and no strangers or tramps had been seen in the vicinity. This backed speculation that she had to have been murdered by someone she knew.

 

A three-foot wooden club was later found at the crime scene that looked as if it had been freshly pulled out of the bark (which was also found) and could have been used as the weapon. It had a drop of blood on the end of it 

 

On May 14 of this year, a group of citizens gathered at Alice Leonard’s gravesite in St. Luke’s Cemetery in Clearwater to remember and honor her.

 

Deacon Ron Freeman from St. Timothy’s in Maple Lake blessed the site and gave a prayer.

 

The murder of Alice Hayes Leonard has never been solved.