On October 18, 1933, the Pantagraph couldn't get enough of the story when four people died of gas inhalation in an apartment at 105 1/2 N Lee Street on the west side. Annie Edwards of 1222 E Grove Street owned the apartment house, and her husband George discovered the bodies when he responded to a complaint of a gas leak.
According to neighbors, multiple complaints about the occupant of the apartment, Claude Hicks age 49, had been made to the authorities. (The neighbors were quick to disassociate themselves from the Hicks' group.) Hicks lived there with Madelaine VanOrdstrand, age 21. The other two people who died in the apartment were Marie Witte Baxter and James McCabe. The apartment was known as a "booze flat," due to the drinking and dancing that occurred there. The newspaper described the apartment in delicious detail, noting that the front room was used as a bedroom with a mattress on the floor and a blanket laid out on the floor for a second sleeping place, they assumed for McCabe, who was over 60 years old. The stove was in the front room as well, so it must have been an especially cramped place for the four people to live. Bottles of alcohol and glasses were noted to be on the shelves of the room. Unfinished drinks remained on the tables. The second room held a jukebox and a table for gambling, with dice, cards and chips.
To add to the generally squalid living conditions of the apartment, the reporter noted that Marie Witte Baxter (another woman of just 21 years) was lying on the mattress, the covers not quite covering her "bust." (No mention was made of what she was wearing, which would possibly have spoiled the mental picture for some readers.) It was known that Madelaine was living with Hicks, but the reporter assumed from the fact that Marie was in the bed that she also was sleeping with Hicks.
The gas in the rooms came from the gas heater in the bathroom and the stove in the front room, both of which had the valves open but unlit. Madelaine was found near the stove, a few matches in her hand. Despite this, the jury found that someone in the room had intentionally murdered the other three. No mention was made of testing the blood alcohol of the victims, but perhaps some consideration was given to the possibility that they had all been too drunk to realize the gas was filling the room after the flames had become extinguished.
The good citizens of McLean County may have relished this glimpse into the sordid life of gamblers and boozers, but it must have distressed the families to have their daughters exposed to the dirty minds of the public.