Chester Congdon Research Paper

Murder, mystery, intrigue; these are the words of what you would normally find describing a game of clue, or a gripping, ghastly, ghostly tale found in old thriller movies where the climax is when you find out the butler killed him with a candlestick in the billiards room. The word “scandal” certainly couldn’t apply to our own home state when the closest we come to murder is in a board game or Hollywood setup; but this is where we visit the setting of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota. Chester Condon and his family were the names whispered around the words of “scandal” and “money misers.” In this paper, I will tell the tale of the Congdons, and show you where a horror movie or board game comes to our own backyard.
Chester Congdon built his
elaborate mansion for his family in 1905.When the house was done in 1908, the cost was $865,000. This house has 15 bedrooms, 15 fireplaces, and eight bathrooms; totaling 39 rooms. Chester could afford this big mansion because of his thriving iron mining buisiness (O’Leary).
Chester and Clara, his wife, met in college through a math class where Chester worked at and where Clara went to school.
He liked that she understood her math lessons each day.
On September 29, 1881, Chester and Clara got married in Syracuse, New York. They didn’t have a honeymoon because of the costs.
Clara had suffered a severe hearing loss in her early forties and carried a hearing aid and large battery with a microphone around her neck (Kimball 26).
One year after the wedding, Clara and Chester had their first child, Walter. By 1898, Clara and Chester had six children; Helena, Marjorie, Elizabeth, Walter, Edward and Robert. Elizabeth was named after Clara’s maternal grandmother (Kimball
20).
The family then moved in the mansion in 1903. The family lived at the mansion for about 70 years. All of the children moved out of the mansion, except for Elizabeth. Elizabeth lived in the mansion until she was 83 years old.
It was June 26, 1977 Miss Congdon just returning from a weekend trip to Wisconsin unpacked her things and went to bed because it was really late. When the morning nurse was making her check ups on the house hold, she found the night nurse Velma Pietila on the stair case dead, with a candle stick next to her. Then she ran to Miss Congdon’s room and found her dead, with a satin blood stained pillow case. The day nurse called the police and they arrived shortly after.
When the police arrived at the crime scene, to find Velma on the stair case they found her holding hair in her hand.
Then went to Miss Congdons room and found empty jewelry box that had a 13 charmed bracelet, for each of her grand children and an empty wicker basket that contained a gold coin. When they checked for finger prints they didn’t find any out of the ordinary fingerprint but, when they took the hair in for a sample test, they found a match to Roger Caldwell’s. The police fequered out that Roger needed money and was planning on asking Miss Congdon for some of the trust fund money she had set a side for her adopted daughter, Marjorie
Caldwell.
When the police traced an envelop Roger had mailed to himself that contained the gold coin, they found him at a hotel, when they searched his room they found a sapphire and a diamond ring. On July 6, 1977 Roger was found guilty. They charged two sentences for murder Committing the murders and, allegedly to hurry the collection of his wife’s large sum of the inheritance (Kimball 62 ).

Clues where popping together, On April 10, 1978 Roger Caldwell’s trial begins in Brainerd, Minnesota, they moved from Duluth because of the extensive publicity about the case (Kimball 62).
On July 11, 1978, Encouraged by Roger Caldwell’s conviction, Duluth official’s charged Marjorie Caldwell with conspiring to kill her mother and the nurse. She is released on $100,000 bond (Kimball 73).