Dr. Wynekoop
Stated Verging
On Pneumonia
_____

    Chicago, Nov. 28 (AP).--Pneumonia threatened Dr. Alice L. Wynekoop tonight as Cook County prosecutors prepared to go before the grand jury tomorrow and demand her indictment for the murder of her daughter-in-law, Rheta.
    Already in a state of exhaustion when she entered the county jail Saturday, she became seriously ill today, as a bronchial cough progressed and Dr. Francis W. McNamara, jail physician, found evidences of lung congestion. He described her condition as not alarming, but serious.
    Her son, Earle, whose prosecution for a part in the plot to kill his wife was less certain tonight, asked to see his mother, but was not given a definite answer. He was held in an adjoining cell block on a warrant accusing him of being an accessory to the conspiracy to chloroform and shoot Rheta.

    Charles S. Dougherty, assistant State's attorney, announced that he would take witnesses before the grand jury tomorrow and seek a murder indictment against the elderly physician, but he evaded answering a question as to action against Earle.
    Dougherty said the confession Dr. Wynekoop signed, attributing death to an overdose of chloroform and the pistol shot to her own effort to protect her professional reputation, would be an important part of the evidence. Dr. Wynekoop later repudiated the confession.
    Witnesses at tomorrow's hearing will be Dr. Harry R. Hoffman, head of the criminal court behavior clinic; Capt. John Stege, Lieut. William V. Blaul, Lieut. Thomas A. Duffy and John Long, assistant State's attorney, who participated in the questioning that led to the confession.
    The prosecutors have said that the only part of the confession they accepted was that portion in which Dr. Wynekoop said she fired the bullet into Rheta's back. Medical examiners have stated for the prosecution that the girl was still alive when shot.

    One of the dangerous factors in the condition of Dr. Wynekoop, who is 62, is her high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries. Dr. McNamara said her blood pressure today was above 220, abnormally high. Her pulse was rapid, and the jail physician said she complained of a feeling of congestion in the region of the heart.
    "I have put her on a liquid diet," he said, "and prescribed medicine to relieve congestion in her lungs and think she will proceed favorably."
    Added to the mass of conflicting evidence already perplexing the State was the report today by ballistic experts that a bullet found embedded in a bedroom wall was not fired from the same pistol as the bullet taken from Rheta's body. Dr. Wynekoop and Earle had previously said the same pistol was used. Prosecutors expressed belief that the pistol fired in the bedroom was that taken along by Earle and Stanley Young on their trip to Kansas City.

Source:

Unknown, "Dr. Wynekoop Stated Verging On Pneumonia," The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Wednesday, 29 November, 1933, p. 9.