Click here to return to Part 1 of the Murderous Dreams of Mrs. Mather! 

Soon after Fred’s arrest, Mrs. Fannie Mather learned he was a religious fanatic who belonged to a sect known as the Holy Rollers. She went to the jail and agreed with police to pose as another Holy Roller, and in that guise attempt to force a confession. She would confront the prisoner in his cell. She was led back to see Fred Fanning.

The Topeka State Journal described the suspect as follows: “Fanning, the murderer, is a man about 50 years of age, with a low receding forehead and small sunken eyes which glitter from behind his high cheek bones, foretelling his Indian ancestry. His hair as well as his mustache is black and coarse though inclined to curl.”

Mrs. Mather pleaded with him to confess his crime and receive the Lord’s forgiveness. Her ruse was successful. Fred crumpled before Mrs. Mather’s fierce questioning.

“I wanted money to go into the restaurant business,” he admitted. “Mrs. Short told me if I would take care of her until she died I would get all the property she had, which amounted to quite a sum of money.” The widow, he said, had saved $1,400 from the charity she received.

Mrs. Short’s neighbor, Mrs. Elizabeth McCauley, alias Mrs. Minnie English, eventually became close to Fanning. She told him he ought to poison Mrs. Short. They would take her money and open a restaurant together. If he didn’t do it, Mrs. McCauley vowed to kill him.

“I guess it is an awful thing to kill anyone but she would not have lived much longer and I got tired of waiting for her to die,” Fred Fanning went on. “About a month ago, I gave Mrs. Short a dose of ‘Rough on Rats,’ and it made her mighty sick, but she got well. The day she died I gave her a bigger dose and that fixed her.”

Fred said he had given Mrs. McCauley $1,460 for them to open a restaurant together. The prisoner added he was willing to plead guilty to the murder.

Mrs. McCauley denied any knowledge of or participation in the crime against Mrs. Short. She said Fanning’s statement was a lie. “Edward English, with whom she has lived out of wedlock, also denies any knowledge of the crime. The officers do not believe that the McCauley woman or English had anything to do with the crime.”

Fanning seemed repentant. “I want to go to the penitentiary right away for perhaps it will make a better man of me and I will feel better when I know that I am suffering the penalty for my crime,” he said. “I don’t care whether they send me there for a few years or for life because I feel that I must now do something to get God’s forgiveness for killing Mrs. Short. I am willing to plead guilty tomorrow and begin my sentence for my mind will not be at rest until I get to the penitentiary.”

On November 8, Mrs. Short was exhumed. The prosecutor couldn’t take Fanning’s word for it, though he had confessed, when it was still possible to have direct evidence. “The stomach and other organs removed and placed in the hands of a chemist for analysis, though there is no longer any doubt in the minds of the officers of the cause of [Mrs. Short’s] death. As soon as the chemist makes his report the coroner’s jury, which was summoned, will make their report in the case,” the Topeka State Journal reported.

An investigation found that Mrs. McCauley had Mrs. Short’s watch in her possession that she said Fanning brought to her, along with a pocketbook containing $45.

It was an open and shut case. Fred Fanning and Mrs. McCauley had committed an infamous crime but they would hang for it! It all seemed to be nicely settled.

No one would have believed then that the headline on the front page of the Topeka Daily Capital eight days later would look like this:

Go to Part 3!