Sat, Jul 17, 1926 ·Page 2
(The Grand Island Independent, Sat, Jul 17, 1926 ·Page 2)
Transcript
EVANGELIST IS STANDING PAT
Mother Says Fires of Hell Are Burning and Must Burn Selves Out
SEARCH FOR ORMISTON
Aimee McPherson’s Reply to Testimony Before Grand Jury Is Announcement of Baptism of Over Hundred Converts.
Los Angeles, July 17. (AP)—Search for the kidnapers mentioned by Aimee Semple McPherson in the story of her abduction shifted back to the Mexican border today.
Authorities said they had received reports that a “heavily veiled” woman and two male companions stopped at a secluded mountain resort at Jacumba, near the twin cities of Calexico and Mexicali. The trio arrived at the resort three days after the evangelist disappeared. They are said to have left hastily in the night.
Evangelist’s Statement.
Los Angeles, July 17. (AP)—Aimee Semple McPherson’s reply to the sworn testimony of five witnesses before the grand jury that directly contradicted her tale of kidnapping from the Santa Monica beach near here, May 18, last, was the announcement from Angelus temple, her religious headquarters, yesterday, that she had baptized 136 converts at Thursday night’s service.
Her mother, Mrs. Minnie Kennedy, made brief but pointed comment on the statements of the men and women, who told the grand jury they had seen Mrs. McPherson in Culver City, a suburb and in Agua Prieta, Mexico, during the time she said she was in the hands of abductors.
“The fires of hell are burning and they must burn themselves out, but we are not afraid,” said Mother Kennedy.
The next session of the grand jury investigation will be held Tuesday, July 20, when the district attorney’s office promises to bring in witnesses to prove that Mrs. McPherson was traveling with Kenneth G. Ormiston, her former radio operator and friend, while her mother was telling the world she was drowned and during the time in which the evangelist herself says she was held by kidnapers.
Wife Charged Intimacy
Ormiston, sought throughout the country, is believed to be in North Carolina.
The district attorney’s office yesterday issued an appeal to the attorneys of Los Angeles for assistance in locating a lawyer who is believed to have prepared a divorce action against Ormiston about May 17.
Ormiston’s wife, Ruth, daughter of a wealthy Sydney, Australia, ice cream manufacturer, returned to Australia several months ago with her father.
Since that time friends here have been informed she intends to return next January to file her divorce action against her husband. Before leaving she charged her husband with intimacy with Mrs. McPherson, a charge which the latter categorically denied and laid to unreasonable jealousy.
Identified Ormiston
Salinas, Cal., July 17. (AP)—Dennis Collins, an attendant at the Salinas garage, yesterday denied he had told anyone that he had positively identified Mrs. Aimee McPherson as a visitor to the garage following her recent disappearance. He said he had been shown a photograph of Mrs. McPherson but could not identify the photograph as that of the garage visitor.
Collins said he told Assistant District Attorney Joe Ryan, of Los Angeles, that the woman who came to the garage seemed much younger than the woman in the photograph, although there were other marked points of resemblance. He did identify Kenneth G. Ormiston, however, as the man who accompanied the woman to the garage. Ormiston now is being sought.