Attempts to Cover Up


It’s notable how Henry C. Murphy, owner of The Courier Newspaper, worked with federal investigators to expose the conspiracy. In this undated letter he informed U.S. Attorney L. Ert Slack, the lead prosecutor of the whiskey conspiracy case, that a cover-up had begun and that Police Chief Edgar Schmitt and Mayor Benjamin Bosse had called Van Pickerill (here referred to only as “P”) and tried some “tactics.” Van Pickerill was the wholesale liquor dealer who became the prosecution’s star witness.