Rancher and Niece Murdered by Tramp

Buried in Straw Pile

Peter Jacobi And Miss Mathilda Latsch Slain
When About To Enter Home Near Forsyth

Bodies Buried In Straw Pile For 11 Days
While Murderer Prepared To
Remain All Winter

Arthur Hesterly Found at House, Confesses
Admits Would Have Shot Captors If Ammunition Had Held Out - Escaped From Veteran’s Sanitarium At Knoxville, Iowa

Peter Jacobi, aged 48, a rancher residing three miles east of Forsyth on the north bank of the Yellowstone river, and his niece, Miss Mathilda Latsch, were murdered December 29, and their bodies hidden in a straw pile on the place. Arthur Hesterly, 30, an ex-service man, is held for the crime and has confessed to all the horrible details.

Last Friday, 11 days after the murder, Mrs. Geo. Kay of Forsyth a relative and Peter Jacobi, a nephew, became alarmed at the failure of Mr. Jacobi and his niece in making their regular visits to Forsyth and drove to the ranch where they saw a strange man hiding behind a door when they entered the house. Beating a hasty retreat they hurried to the ranch owned by Sheriff C. S. Patterson where they secured the assistance of Dan Donahue and Harold Patterson, and on their return to the Jacobi ranch saw Hasterly hurrying across the fields toward the Milwaukee railroad. When overtaken he surrendered without resistance. After being turned over to Deputy Sheriff Harry Allen and County Attorney F. F. Haynes, Hasterly told the officers where to find the missing rancher and his niece and assisted in locating the frozen bodies, which were found facing each other with a partly filled bottle of moonshine between them.

Hesterly’s story of the murder was complete in every detail. Without any apparent emotion he told of taking possession of the ranch at 3:00 p.m. on Dec. 29, and of the return of Jacobi and Miss Latsch about 5:30 o’clock  in the afternoon. He stood inside the house and fired a shotgun through a window as they reached a gate leading into the year. Jacobi fell at the first shot as did Miss Latsch.

Girl Begs For Life

According to Hesterly’s confession he sat down the shotgun as he had no more shells for it and picking up a Winchester rifle walked to the yard. Miss Latsch rose to her feet begging for mercy, “Don’t you have any pity for her,” he was asked, “No,” was the reply, “she was all covered with blood and I thought that she would be better off dead than alive. She told me that she would do anything I asked if I would save her life.” The confession then reads that Hesterly beat her to the ground with the butt end of the rifle and that he then obtained an axe with which he beat in the heads of the woman and man and chopped their throats.

Robbed Bodies

After he was certain that they were dead Hesterly searched the bodies for money and obtained about $14. He overlooked more than $100 that was contained in a belt sewn into Miss Latsch’s garments. The watch carried by Miss Latsch was found near the gate where they met their death. The crystal was broken and it had stopped at 5:00 o’clock, corroborating Hesterly’s account of the time the two returned home.

Following the slaying of Jacobi and the woman Hesterly picked up the packages they had been carrying and took them into the house. Some groceries found in the packages provided part of his evening meal. He put everything in order, used Miss Latsch’s room for his bedroom and proceeded for eleven days to run the ranch, taking care of the livestock and gathering the eggs each day.

The bodies of the man and woman he left in the yard the first evening and night and the next morning with the assistance of a wheelbarrow took them to a haystack where he hid them.
When asked why he did not attempt to shoot Mrs. Kay and Peter Jacobi when they called at the Jacobi ranch to investigate why Mr. Jacobi had not been to Forsyth, he said that he had no shells for the shotgun and that the only gun he had for which he had shells was not working well and that he was afraid to attempt to shoot for fear the gun would discharge and that he would be captured. This also was the explanation for why he did not resist when captured.

Prisoner Removed

Hesterly’s story of the diabolical murder so stirred Rosebud county citizens that it was deemed advisable to remove the prisoner to another county for safe keeping.

A Moron

On Saturday Hesterly made many additions to his first confession, according to County Attorney Haynes who says that it was a premeditated murder, planned hours before, with robbery as the motive, by a moron with a brain warp of vicious turn and that on Friday, he talked in a rambling manner of it being the natural instinct of man to kill his fellows just as he would kill birds and animals.

In his latest confession Saturday afternoon, Hesterly, according to the county attorney, said that he selected the Jacobi ranch house to loot because of its isolated position on the bank of the river and almost three miles to the traveled highways. according to Haynes, Hesterly said he went to the house early on the afternoon of the double murder intending to rob the occupants and to kill them if it became necessary to accomplish his purpose.

Expected To Remain

“Hesterly described to me how he waited day after day for friends or acquaintances of the rancher to appear, expecting that he would be forced to make a quick getaway,” said Mr. Haynes. “When none came Hesterly said he concluded that Jacobi and his niece were people without friends in the community and that he would be safe to spend the remainder of the winter at the ranch, which was well supplied with food.”
For the first five days of his vigil after the murder, Hesterly was on the alert night and day, Mr. Haynes said. Then, he told Haynes, he gradually began to feel that he was safe at the ranch for perhaps months to come. “I thought they were living the lives of hermits,” Hesterly is quoted as telling Mr. Haynes.

Hesterly’s supplemental account of the killing, according to Mr. Haynes, stated that he shot Jacobi and the girl with a shotgun found in the house.
“This man displayed craftiness beyond the mind he sought to impress us Friday he possessed,” said Mr. Haynes. “He showed depravity, the like of which I have never encountered before. Greed was his motive. He was looking for a soft place in which to spend the winter and at the Jacobi home he believed he had reached his goal.”

Tracing Movements

Efforts to trace the movements of Hesterly from the day he escaped from the government hospital at Knoxville, Iowa, to his employment a few days prior to the murder in a Miles City cafe as dishwasher, are being made by the county attorney and sheriff. Thus far these indicate that the former soldier spent most of the time after his escape in Iowa, in the Dakotas and Montana. Whether or not he was in Billings at the time Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were killed in their barber shop there a year ago last December has not been determined thus far. Hesterly in extremely evasive when he is pressed with questions concerning his movements during December, 1924, and January, 1925.

Hesterly stated that he is 30 years of age an that his parents and several brothers and sisters are now living at West Plains, Mo. He was a member of company G. of the seventieth regiment of infantry, tenth division of the United States army, at one time, enlisting from West Plains, from where he was taken to Camp Funston, Kan., according to information given to Attorney Haynes. He was also confined in a hospital under government care at Nevada, Mo. and at Knoxville, Iowa, he said, running away from the latter August 1, 1924. Since that time he has been roaming through the south and east. He also admitted that he had served three jail terms; twice for stealing and once for criminal trespass, the jail terms being spent in Watoonsky, Ala., and Athens, Ga.

Hesterly said he arrived in Miles City from Dawson, N.D., where he had worked for some time on a ranch for May Brothers. He said he washed dishes in the Cozy cafe in Miles City for a time, leaving there December 28 to resume his wandering.

The man is intelligent looking, tall, and has black hair and eyes.

Pete Jacobi, the murdered man had lived near Forsyth for many years. Relatives of Jacobi include a number of nephews and nieces, two brothers Joe Jacobi of Forsyth and Gus Jacobi of near Casper, Wyo. and a sister, Mrs. Charles Latsch of Butte, who is the mother of the murdered woman, Jacobi was a member of the Eastern Montana Pioneers association. Mr. Jacobi and his slain niece were in Forsyth on Tuesday afternoon, December 29, and left for the ranch at about 4:30 o’clock.

Neighbor Heard Shots
William Sissel, a rancher living on the south side of the Yellowstone river opposite the Jacobi ranch, is reported to have told the Rosebud county officials that he heard three shots fired the evening of December 20, the day the man and woman were killed, and that three days later he saw two men at the farm, one splitting wood and the other gathering eggs.
Funeral services for the two murder victims were held Monday morning at the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Forsyth and were largely attended.

(Published in the Hysham Echo January 14, 1926 & Oct. 18, 2013) Print this post