Wednesday: A surprising letter and a convenient confession

The break in Aurora's most notorious murder did not come from the discovery of a weapon or a hidden fingerprint. It came from the ribbon of a typewriter.

In the weeks after Aurora florist Warren Lincoln disappeared in April 1923 -- then re-appeared six weeks later -- Police Chief Frank Michels tried to make sense of Lincoln's bizarre alibi.

Michels never believed Lincoln was dead. In fact, he speculated Lincoln had probably murdered his wife, Lina, and her brother, Byron Shoup.

But there wasn't any evidence to back up the chief's theory. It was all hunch and no bodies.

Then, after months without a word from Lina, her family received a letter.

Byron was with her, the letter said. He had broken his leg. Please send $500 to the Evanston post office, the letter pleaded. Tell no one.

The note was typed in green ink. The letter matched a green personal ad -- also sent by someone claiming to be Lina -- submitted to the Chicago Tribune days after Warren Lincoln was supposedly murdered and a third green letter from an anonymous man who claimed he saw Lincoln kill himself.

Michels looked at the letters, but what did they add up to? Each piece was strange, probably suspicious. But it was a long way from evidence of a murder. And in the meantime Lincoln had vanished again.

Michels, who was about to leave for California on vacation, needed a different approach. He couldn't go after Lincoln for murder.

Lina's family sent the $500. Not long after that, another letter -- and another request for money -- showed up. This time, Lina's sister decided to meet her sister at the Evanston post office with the reply. Lina didn't show, but Warren Lincoln did. He escaped before anyone could catch him.

Michels had had enough. Lincoln would be charged with obtaining $500 under false pretenses. If they could find him.

On Jan. 13, 1924, a short, bald man walked into the Charles Baumgarten Co., in Chicago. The visitor was looking for a job as a calendar salesman. He had references, including Dr. E.C. Van Hook, from his hometown in Mount Pulaski.

It wasn't long before the company called Van Hook, and Van Hook called Aurora police, and police set out to a get a look at this potential calender salesman. Warren Lincoln had been found.

He was living in a nice apartment near Lake Michigan. Lincoln's cheeks had hollowed out, his shoulders drooped.

Detective A.J. Wirz and Kane County Assistant State's Attorney J. Bruce Amell brought Warren to the police station and started some preliminary questioning -- name, age, where he was born.

When police asked about the last time he saw his wife's brother, Lincoln squirmed a bit.

"He isn't living," Lincoln said flatly. "Well boys, I want to make a clean breast of it, and tell you the whole thing. It has been worrying me for a long time. I'll begin at the beginning. The night this happened, I noticed I was the only one served cocoa..."

Lincoln said he was suspicious and refused to drink the hot chocolate. Byron flew into a rage, but Lina suddenly appeared. She shot her brother three times. Lincoln grabbed the gun, then hit her on the head with a fire poker.

He was afraid. Not knowing what to do, Lincoln decided to cut up both bodies, and burn them in his furnace. Finally, he spread chicken blood on the window sill and faked his death to escape from the entire horrible episode.

Lincoln's words came out breathlessly. It was as if, the newspaper reported, a spigot had been pulled from a barrel unexpectedly. It was a vibrant, shocking story from beginning to end.

Two thousand miles away in San Francisco, Michels picked up a local paper. The case he had worked on for months had apparently been solved. A telegram followed from Aurora police, saying Lincoln had confessed.

But Michels found Lincoln's story a little too perfect. In it, he was a victim and the evidence was burned. There was literally no "corpus dilecti" -- the legal phrase for body of evidence.

As he headed back to Aurora, Michels' gut wasn't satisfied.