The substance of it was that his murderess is a Miss Laura Hawkins, whom he had known at Washington as a lobbyist and had some business with her.

She had followed him with her attentions and solicitations, and had endeavored to make him desert his wife and go to Europe with her.

When he resisted and avoided her she had threatened him.

Only the day before he left Washington she had declared that he should never go out of the city alive without her.
It seems to have been a deliberate and premeditated murder, the woman following him to Washington on purpose to commit it.
We learn that the, murderess, who is a woman of dazzling and transcendent beauty and about twenty six or seven, is a niece of Senator Dilworthy at whose house she has been spending the winter.
She belongs to a high Southern family, and has the reputation of being an heiress.

Like some other great beauties and belles in Washington however there have been whispers that she had something to do with the lobby.