A: It’s not an apartment, actually, it’s a rented room. In Hainesville. We planned to stay there till we read the papers and knew everything had come off the way we figured. Then we were going to Europe. We planned on going to Europe in October. I’ve always wanted to go to Europe. I was going to use Harry Fletcher’s birth certificate when I applied for a passport.
Q: Where did you steal the second body?
A: From a place on Sixth and Stilson.
Q: Was that the body of John Hiller?
A: I don’t know who he was. He was my size and about my age. I went in there, and he was laying naked on the table, and he looked about right. I didn’t know anyone was in the place. I was about to lake the body when someone asked me what I was doing there. I turned around and ... there was a man standing there, and I... I...
Q: Yes, Mr. Wylie?
A: I picked up a knife from the table. The table the body was on. And I... I guess I stabbed him.
Q: Would you look at this photograph, please? Is this the man you stabbed?
A: Yes.
Q: What did you do next?
A: I picked up the body ... the one that was on the table...
Q: You picked up the body of John Hiller?
A: If that was his name.
Q: That was his name.
A: I picked him up and carried him outside. I was putting the body in the bus when a dog began barking, and I saw an old lady standing there looking at me. I guess I... I got very frightened then. I had just stabbed a man, and she was looking at me, and even though I planned to shave my head and my mustache, suppose she described Arthur Wylie to you, and later you find what’s supposed to be Arthur Wylie burned to death, wouldn’t you make a connection? I mean, wouldn’t you know why Arthur Wylie had stolen a dead body? So I... I went after her, and I guess I would have killed her, too, but she started yelling and people were beginning to look out their windows, so I dropped the crowbar and got out of there fast.
Q: Mr. Wylie, do you recognize this pendant?
A: I do.
Q: Whose pendant is it?
A: It’s Natalie’s.
Q: Natalie Fletcher’s?
A: Yes. It’s hers.
Q: Were you wearing it when you stole the body of John Hiller from the mortuary at Sixth and Stilson?
A: I was. I must’ve lost it when I was struggling with the old lady. She was ripping at my clothes, she scratched my face, she was a terrible old lady.
Q: Why were you wearing Natalie’s pendant?
A: She gave it to me for luck.
Q: When?
A: Sunday. Before I went out looking for a body.
Q: The night you stole the corpse from Abner Boone’s mortuary?
A: I don’t know the name of the place. The one on Hennessy Street. Where I got the embalmed body.
Q: And you were still wearing it last night, when you stole the second corpse?
A: Yes. Well, I still needed luck, you see.
Q: When did you shave off your mustache and the hair on your head?
A: After I got the second body. I wrapped it in an old rag Natalie used to have in her apartment, and I left it in the VW bus when I parked it. I didn’t want to risk carrying it any place, I figured it would be safe there till the next day. When I got back to the apartment, I put a Band-Aid on my face where the old lady had scratched me, and then I shaved off the mustache, and cut off my hair and shaved my scalp clean.
Q: What time did you leave the apartment on Oberlin Crescent tonight?
A: About six-thirty. I gave myself plenty of time. I knew where I was going to fake the explosion, and I knew it only took a half-hour to get there from my apartment. But I still had to get the gasoline. You see, I’d gone to a hardware store on Saturday, and bought a plastic five-gallon container, you know, with a cap on it and a pouring nozzle—cost me six dollars and fifty cents. But I still had to fill it with gas. So the first thing I did was find a gas station, and have them fill it for me. Then I drove around till it got dark, and when I got to the approach road, I had to wait another five minutes because some guy was parked there, reading a road map. When he left, I got the bus in position, took my valises out of it, and put the body behind the wheel. Then I poured the gas over the body and the front seat.
Q: How could you be sure the gasoline would explode?
A: Oh, I was sure.
Q: How? The engine and the gas tank are in the rear of a Volkswagen bus.
A: Oh, sure, I know that. But you see, what I did was push in the cigarette lighter just before I rolled the bus over the edge. It takes twenty-five seconds for the lighter to get hot, I timed it. I pushed in the lighter, got out of the bus fast, shoved it over, and then watched it go down the embankment. It exploded the second the lighter got hot.
Q: What did you do after the bus exploded?