Man believed to have murdered 7-year-old Ammon girl in 1916 ended up in jail but wasn’t charged with her death
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AMMON — An Ammon girl mysteriously vanished in 1916 on her way home from church leaving the community clueless as to “where the little girl went or in what direction.”
The story on 7-year-old Alice Empey (it was previously reported she was eight years old) was featured in our weekly Looking Back column, which looks back on what life was like during certain time periods in east Idaho history.
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Alice disappears
Alice left home near Ammon on Sunday morning, April 16, 1916, to attend Sunday school. Reports say she attended Sunday school and disappeared on her way home. Before leaving for church, Alice was “told by her mother that she might visit her grandmother.”
“The child did not return and the grandmother was telephoned Monday and stated that the child had not been there,” The Rigby Star reported. “The alarm was given and the search taken up.”
The little girl was wearing a dark hat, an old rose dress, white stockings, dark shoes and had a black ribbon in her hair when she went missing.
The Blackfoot Idaho Republican said on April 28, 1916, the entire community gathered to help find the little girl. Streams in the vicinity were “carefully dragged” and the surrounding country searched.
E.S. Empey, a relative, explained the disappearance of the child was a mystery because the road from her home to Ammon, half a mile away, “affords no opportunity to become lost, is in plain sight all of the way and there are no canals to cross.”
Not the first kidnapping in Empey family
Alice was not the first Empey in the family to go missing, according to Idaho historian Rick Just’s Speaking of Idaho blog. In July 1915, Alonzo Ernest Empey, who went by Ernest, was abducted. Ernest’s niece was Alice. Ernest was a wealthy sheepherder who had a ranch in Bingham County, east of Wolverine Canyon. That was where he was taken.
Ernest escaped his kidnapper after almost a week in captivity. The man, who had asked for $6,000 in ransom, was named Leonidas Dean. He had once worked for Ernest as a sheepherder.
“With that abduction fresh in people’s minds, it is no wonder there was speculation about a connection when a second Empey went missing,” Just wrote on his blog. “Law enforcement authorities questioned Leonidas Dean about the missing girl, though he was not a suspect himself. He was serving one to 10 in the Idaho State Penitentiary for the 1915 abduction.”
Theories circulate, piece of evidence discovered
Several theories on what happened to Alice began to emerge. Someone remembered a speeding car on the road by Alice’s house on the day she disappeared. A theory was she’d accidentally been hit by the car, and fearing prosecution, the driver hid her body.
The search then took a “new urgency” when a scrap of clothing that included a button was found about a half-mile from her house on April 21, 1916.
“The search for the child or for her body is being continued far back into the hills by 200 men,” Just shared from an April 23, 1916, Idaho Statesman article. “If the auto accident theory is disproved there will be nothing to fall back upon save the theory that the child was kidnapped and is being held for ransom from her wealthy relatives.”
Alice’s body found, governor announces reward
On May 15, 1916, Alice’s body was found. J.W. Patterson, a farmer, found the body in a “clump of drift wood” that had washed down Sand Creek about 200 yards from the Empey home.
“The finding of the body of little Alice Empey, near Idaho Falls yesterday, brings to light what appears to have been a crime of particularly atrocious proportions and all indications are to the effect that the child not only was the victim of outrage, but was fearfully mutilated and the body cast into the canal,” The Pocatello Tribune wrote.
“The case attracted wide attention all over the country on account of it being one of the most terrible and fearful crimes ever enacted in this section,” The Pocatello Tribune later stated.
Idaho Gov. Moses Alexander announced a $1,000 reward from the State of Idaho for the “apprehension and conviction of the person or persons” responsible for murdering Alice.
“Several suspects were questioned about the murder, then released,” Just mentioned on his blog. “Suspiciously, one of the men questioned committed suicide soon after.”
He explains on his blog that Luke May, a private detective from Salt Lake City, was hired to work on the case.
“May, sometimes called America’s Sherlock Holmes, had a reputation for using scientific methods for solving crimes,” Just stated. “May came to believe that the person who had killed Alice was likely someone who lived off the land and rarely came in contact with people. Just such a man entered the story.”
Who is Edward Ness?
In December 1916, news came out of Hailey, Idaho, that authorities had arrested a man by the name of Edward Ness, 26, for attacking a young girl in her home, according to Just.
“He is a Russian pole who came to this country in 1905, a tailor by trade but for the last year-and-a-half has been doing nothing at all and has been roaming the country and, according to the officers, living the life of a wild man,” The Pocatello Tribune wrote.
It continued, “he was arrested on the outskirts of the Snake River desert, after, so the officers state, he had made an attack on a girl in a farmhouse situated on the border of the desert and far from any other habitation.”
Just mentioned in his article that during the authorities interrogation, they learned that Ness had earlier attacked three sisters in the Hailey area, holding them as prisoners in a cabin for a time.
“There was talk in Hailey of an imminent lynching, especially when word got out that Ness had confessed to the murder of Alice Empey while under interrogation by Luke May,” Just wrote. “That seemed to solve the Alice Empey case, at least until news hit regional papers that Ness had not in fact confessed.”
Was Ness charged with murdering Alice?
Officers said Ness admitted to being in Ammon the day Alice disappeared. He also gave officers a “vivid account” as to how the murder took place but stated “he heard of the case only” and “did not confess to the crime.”
“Did he confess or did he not? Luke May, the private detective, believed Ness had confessed and had committed the murder, but the man was never charged with it,” Just explained. “Instead, he was charged with a crime for which there was solid evidence, a brutal rape, convicted, and sentenced to 20 years in the Idaho State Penitentiary. … Officially the murder of Alice Empey remains unsolved.”
