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| Allie Dool |
In September 1902, Aledo, Illinois, found itself plunged
waist-deep into the biggest murder mystery the town had ever encountered. Marie
Antoinette Dunlap (Tona) stood accused of killing her best friend, Mary Alma
Dool (Allie), to get her $4.00 a-week job as a clerk at Felix’s Store.
At first, the authorities considered Allie Dool’s death an
unfortunate accident. The coroner’s inquest said the same thing. It was
accidental poisoning.
A few days later, suspicion centered on Tona Dunlap.
State’s Attorney Will J. Graham questioned the decision of the
coroner’s inquest and began looking into the details of Allie’s death. He tried
to question Tona but met a brick wall. Every time he asked a question, she said
her attorney advised her not to say anything.
Then Dr. Carter, the pharmacist at Craig’s Drug Store, told
Graham Tona bought five cents worth of strychnine on Sunday, August 3.
That gave the state’s attorney the ammunition he needed to go
after Tona Dunlap. The next person he spoke to was Margaret Miller. She told
him about her shopping trip with Tona Dool the day Allie died.
“How many chocolates did Tona give Mrs. Dool?”
“Four, I think. They were all stuck together.”
“Did Miss Dool reach into the bag and take them out, or did Tona
take the candy out and hand it to her?”
“Tona took four pieces, which stuck together, out of the bag and
gave them to Mrs. Dool. She said something about them being mashed.”
It seemed like a trivial question, but the entire case depended
on who put the poison chocolates in Allie Dool’s hand. If she chose them
herself, it was most likely an accident. If Tona selected the candies for her,
murder was more likely.
The state’s attorney had Tona arrested based on evidence showing
she bought strychnine and selected which candies to give Allie.
Later, Margaret Miller changed her story at the preliminary
hearing and said Tona Dunlap did not pick the candies she gave Allie out of the
bag. “Allie picked the pieces out of the bag herself.”
Tonya (Tona) Dunlap
Maynard Marquis testified: “Tona and Miller came into the store
after 5 o’clock. They were sitting at the counter. I saw Mrs. Dool reach over
and get some candy out of the sack that was sitting on the counter.” Marquis
said he was unsure of anything at the preliminary hearing, so things must have
cleared up for him.
The grand jury issued a perjury indictment against Margaret
Miller for changing her testimony midstream, saying it looked like she was
protecting her friend.
The way the prosecutor saw it, there were only three
possibilities. 1) Allie was accidentally poisoned by some unknown method. 2)
Allie killed herself because of her recent breakup with Frank Owens, or 3) Tona
killed her.
The question was: Who put the strychnine in Allie’s chocolate?
And why didn’t Tona and Margaret Miller die if they ate just as much chocolate?
Because they lived and Allie didn’t, that made Tona appear guilty.
Allie’s father said it best. “If it was an accident, it was
strange that Allie got so much of the poison and the others so little.” He
stopped short of blaming anyone for his daughter’s death.
Some people thought Allie Dool might have killed herself. She
had acted strangely since her engagement to Frank Owens ended because he
enjoyed whiskey more than her. The couple had been engaged for nearly six
years, and then Frank broke it off.
Frank Owens, 33, testified at the trial. He had worked at
Felix’s Store for twelve years. He left when Allie got a job there. They broke
up in March because he couldn’t stop drinking.
If Tona killed Allie, what was her motive? Did she really kill
her best friend for a $4.00-a-week job at Felix’s Dry Goods store? That’s what
the prosecution aimed to tell jurors.
Attorneys examined three hundred people before selecting the
jury.
The first day was devoted to determining the facts of the case.
Tona Dunlap bought five cents worth of strychnine at Craig’s
Drug Store on Sunday, August 3. On Wednesday, August 6, she purchased five
cents’ worth of chocolate candies at Miller’s Grocery Store.
The next afternoon, Thursday, August 7, Tona purchased another
nickel’s worth of candy. Margaret Miller, a boarder at her mother’s house, was
with her. They ate the candy as they walked to Felix’s Dry Goods store, where
Allie Dool worked.
Dool was busy waiting on customers, so they left and walked up
to the depot and waited for the 4:50 train. They headed back to Felix’s at
about 5 p.m. The customers had cleared out by then, so the girls visited for a
while.
Tona asked Allie if she wanted some candy.
“Yes, indeed,” replied Allie. “You know I never refuse candy.”
Tona took a bite of the candy, then spat it out, complaining it
tasted bitter. She tried another piece, but it was just as bitter. “I asked
Miss Dool if she would excuse me if I should spit it on the floor,” said Tona.
“She said ‘certainly,’ and I spit the candy out on the floor.”
Margaret Miller verified Tona’s comment about the candy being
bitter and spitting it out. “Tona was eating a piece when she spoke about it
being bitter and asked permission of Miss Dool to spit it out on the floor.”
That should have been a clue for the other two girls that
something was wrong with the candy. But no, they ate it anyway. Unfortunately,
neither the prosecution nor the defense focused on this issue.
Later that night, after learning Dool was poisoned, Tona
experienced similar symptoms. Dr. Carter determined she wasn’t poisoned. He
wrote it off as a nervous reaction after hearing what happened to her
friend.
Allie kept eating the candy after Tona and Margaret Miller
left. She began convulsing about fifteen minutes later. By 10 p.m., she
was dead.
Before she died, Allie told Doctor M. G. Reynolds, “The candy
Lena gave me was so bitter I put part of it out. It is near the muslin
counter.” I imagine that means she vomited, but neither side attempted to
check.
As she was dying, Allie muttered, “I wonder why Lena did this?”
“Why did Lena give me this?”
Mr. Felix testified about finding Allie going into convulsions
when he returned from supper. She said the candy Tona brought her tasted “so
bitter.”
Frank Minor, the grocer who sold Tona the candy, said nothing
was wrong with it.
And finally, Dr. J. Allen Patton testified he found traces of
strychnine in the candy Tona gave Allie and the contents of the girl’s stomach.
Dr. Patton texting for strychnine poisoning
Dr. Patton explained how he conducted the test to prove Allie was poisoned with strychnine. He used a live frog.
“A glass tube was filled with the solution,” said the doctor.
“Then a live frog was held so its mouth was open, and a drop of the solution
allowed to fall in its throat.
“Then the frog was placed under a glass jar.
“It soon manifested symptoms of uneasiness, turning its head
away from the light. Soon, its movements became convulsive. Its hind legs
became rigid, and its head was thrown backward. Its forelegs were crossed on
its breast. In fifty minutes, the frog was dead.”
Prosecutor Graham focused on the job at Felix’s Store.
“The defendant had a fixed, almost insane idea,” said Graham,
“that she was going to work in Felix’s Store.” A job there remained at the top
of her mind for two years. She told nine people, “She had a definite
arrangement for taking a clerkship in the store.”
“The only thing standing
in her way,” said Graham, pointing toward the defendant, “was Allie Dool. What
was to be done? Remove her. Five days after Allie Dool died in the agony of
strychnine poisoning, Tona Dunlap applied for her position.”
“The candy Tona gave me was so bitter,” Graham repeated the
dying girl’s words. “I wonder why she gave it to me?” In his mind, the dying
girl was telling the world who killed her.
If Tona were her friend, she didn’t act like it. Shortly after
Allie’s death, Tona told her family: It was “God’s will.” Allie “was better off
as she had nothing to live for. Her life had been such a dreary one.”
Graham told the jury that it didn’t sound like a friend talking.
The prosecution insisted Tona bought the strychnine from Craig’s
Drug Store, intending to poison Allie. The defense said she used it as a cure
for corns.
Dr. Carter, the druggist who sold Tona the strychnine, said the
girl bet he “couldn’t guess what it was wanted for?”
“I remarked that I guessed she was going to try it on the
neighbor’s cat. Then she told me she wanted it for corn medicine. I told her
she must be mistaken,” said the doctor, “and suggested that she meant arsenic,
but she assured me she was right, as she had used strychnine for a corn before.
So, I sold the girl seven grains.”
Tona’s sister, Bessie Dunlap, explained how Tona applied the
strychnine.
She sprinkled the powder on a pink cloth, “pulverizing it
between her thumb and finger as she did so. Then she bound the cloth around her
toe and tied it with a string.” When she finished, she threw the paper envelope
that contained the poison away.
And what about the candy Cora McMullen gave Allie Dool a
half-hour before Tona stopped by the store? Maybe it contained poison? Both
girls brought Allie the same type of candy, so who could say which girl’s candy
did the job? Investigators found a piece of candy McMullen gave Allie, but no
one tested it for poison. Why?
The jury deliberated for ten hours before returning a verdict of
not guilty. Tona Dunlap was acquitted of murder on January 3, 1903.
In early August 1903, Tona announced she was writing a book that
would tell the story of the case. She called it The Trial of Tona
Dunlap as Told by Herself. If it was published, there are no references to
it online.
Two years after the case was closed, Mary Dunlap, Tona’s mother,
attempted to kill herself twice. The first time she tried to drown herself. The
second time, she lay down on the tracks in front of a Burlington Road train.
The crew spotted her in time and pulled her off the tracks. Did her suicide
attempts have anything to do with Allie’s death? No one followed up to find out
what was behind her suicide attempts.
Tona Dunlap moved to Quincy, Illinois, and married Jackson
Thompson, a conductor on the Burlington Road, in June 1909.
We can only suppose she lived happily ever after.
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