New York Times September 19, 1928 • Having examined more than 100 witnesses without obtaining evidence on which to base a murder charge in the death on Sept. 2 of William L. D’Olier, sanitation engineer, of a bullet wound in the head, outside a Maspeth cemetery, District Attorney Newcombe of Queens announced yesterday that he would lay the case before the Grand Jury this morning.
“I have gathered together all the evidence submitted to me by the police, supplemented by additional evidence this office has been able to procure,” the prosecutor said in a formal statement, “and my position today is the same as at the very outset – I still hold the theory of homicide, inasmuch as the theory of suicide has not been established. I am frank to state that this mystery is not yet solved.”
He said he would submit the evidence to the Grand Jury “because of its power of subpoena and ability to take evidence under oath, and to investigate every fact that may be procurable.”
The prosecutor added that he might make further progress with the aid of the grand jurors, “but in any event I want the whole matter presented to a legal tribunal in an orderly way, so that every fact may be a matter of official record.”
Mr. Newcombe thought he would be able to complete the questioning of the witnesses before the Grand Jury in three sessions, and it was understood that these witnesses would include practically every person questioned in his preliminary inquiry.
While the prosecutor would not reveal the identity of persons he was reported to have subpoenaed, it was said that they would include Maurice E. Connolly, former Queens Borough President, during whose administration Mr. D’Olier completed a $1,600,000 sewer contract; Frederick Seely, formerly an engineer in the Connolly administration, and who is awaiting trial with Mr. Connolly in the Extraordinary Term of the Supreme Court next Tuesday on an indictment growing out of the Queens sewer scandal; Gilbert C. Waldrop, Mr. D’Olier’s lawyer and business associate; Dr. Peter F. Neyland, the ambulance surgeon from Wyckoff Heights Hospital who pronounced the engineer dead, and relatives of the dead man, including Francis D’Olier, a brother.
