a material witness, after both the bartender and the porter
identified him as the man who had been drinking beer with Walker.
"All right," said Long. "I want to see George Coston."
George Coston, a muscular six-footer, had been Orlando's chief
of police, but had resigned to open his own private detective
agency; his business had prospered. Now he came to the jail to see
Long. After a short conference, he told Deputy Fields that he was
convinced Long was telling the truth and that he knew nothing of
the poisoned whiskey. But Fields wasn't sure and Long was held.
A quick check of the records revealed that Long had had several
brushes with the law. But this didn't prove he had poisoned the
whiskey. A motive was still lacking.
piELDS set out to find who had purchased potassium cyanide. He
checked all the drug stores in Orlando and only one had a
record of a recent sale of the poison. A quarter of a pound had
been purchased by a local physician.
The physician confirmed this; he said he had bought the cyanide
at the request of George Coston, but that it was for Donald Long,
who was making an insecticide which Coston planned to market
Coston was arrested. He readily admitted that he and Long
planned to put an insecticide on the market, but scoffed at the idea
of killing the girl. "I never even saw this Myerly girl," he said.
"Why should I want to kill her?"
Fields didn't know. Why would anybody kill her?
He went back to the records and pored over them for days.
Finally, he came up with the name of Edward Mosely, 17, who
lived in Jacksonville. On a hunch, Mosely was picked up and
brought to Orlando. Frightened, he began to talk. Then he was
confronted with Long, who talked more. Long admitted Mosely
was his cousin. The two told a strange story:
They first got acquainted with George Coston when he was police
chief and they were arrested for a car theft Later, they went to
work for Coston in his detective agency. Still wielding a lot of
power in Orlando, Coston had signed contracts with numerous
large firms to protect them against burglary.
But, said Long, the detective agency was a blind. Coston had
visions of a crime syndicate with himself as the master mind. He
had plotted many thefts, based on his knowledge of local stores.
Coston had counted on Long and Mosely to be the nucleus of his
criminal organization. Because they feared him, they at first
promised to go along. But they stalled him and, finally, he revealed
his full plan: Deputy Fields and the sheriff must be murdered. Long
balked at this and young Mosely returned to Jacksonville. .
It was an amazing story, but it still didn't account for the murder
of Dolores Myerly.
"Did you give Walker that bottle of bourbon?" Fields asked.
"Yes," Long replied. "But I had no idea it was poisoned. I've
since figured it out, though."
He said that, following the quarrel, Coston's attitude had suddenly
changed. He had proposed that they forget about the criminal
syndicate and go ahead with their plans for the insecticide. Long
was relieved and quite willing to do this. Coston, who had been
drinking heavily, suggested they celebrate the new relationship
with a toast. Coston tossed off the contents of one bottle and reached
for another, which he handed to Long. But Long refused, telling
Coston he had been drinking beer and didn't like to mix it with
whiskey. "Okay," said Coston, "take the bottle along for later."
Long had put the bottle in his pocket Then he met Walker,
whom he knew casually and who seemed a congenial fellow. As a
gesture of friendliness, he had given the bottle to Walker.
There was a horrified expression on his face as Long finished his
story. "That poisoned liquor was really meant for me," he said.
"Coston wanted me out of the way so I wouldn't talk!"
The girl had become an innocent victim of Coston's plot
Coston was convicted of second-degree murder and in 1940 was
sentenced to 20 years in prison. Mosely and Long were freed, and
Walker was exonerated.
Questioned as to why he had brought Mosely into the case,
Deputy Fields said: "Long had been an auto thief, and usually car
thieves don't work alone. I discovered from the records that
Mosely had been charged with the same offense. Then I made
discreet inquiry and learned that Mosely was Long's cousin. I had
a hunch he could tell something, though I had no idea what it
would be. But I was convinced that Walker was telling the truth,
and I didn't want to see an innocent man convicted."
UYJ
ends 'Jamiaryi31sV:'
xiKoATPflfmrvn A
0
Family Weekly, January 12, 1954
13
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