Turner Tells Of Escape.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 4, 1913:
Señora Madero Denies the President Had a Death Roster.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    HAVANA, March. 3.—John K. Turner, author of "Barbarous Mexico," who was imprisoned for four days by order of Gen. Felix Diaz, arrived here this morning on his way to New York. Mr. Turner said he escaped from prison in the confusion following the assassination of President Madero and Vice President Suarez, after a rebel officer informed him that it was proposed to shoot him on a charge of having conspired to assassinate Gen. Diaz.
    Señora Francisco I. Madero, Jr., widow of the late President of Mexico, although declining to leave her rooms, authorized an interview over the telephone this afternoon denying the charge that her husband caused the killing of Col. Riverol and also denying that he had any intention of ordering the killing of various prominent men in Mexico.
    The steamship Ypiranga, which bore Porfirio Diaz into exile, arrived here this morning with the family of Ernesto Madero on board.
    Four staterooms aboard the Ward liner Mexico, sailing for New York tomorrow, were engaged to-night by the survivors of the Madero family in this city. The Maderos here have given up the idea of joining Emilio and Raoul Madero in San Antonio. They did not say how long they would remain in New York.
    "Those reports that my husband had a list of men whom he ordered killed are absolutely false," said Señora Madero. " He always opposed such methods, as was evidenced by his saving the lives of Felix Diaz and Bernardo Reyes when every one counseled him to shoot them. President Madero did not shoot Col. Riverol with his own hand, as the false reports state, because my husband never used firearms, not even in those dangerous days when his life was constantly endangered.
    "Although as the army's chief he had a right to mete out such punishment to Col. Riverol as an insubordinate inferior, it was his aid who shot the Colonel, and the aid did so as soon as he perceived that Riverol was trying to take the President as a prisoner, as Col. Riverol had announced he was there to do on entering the room where my husband was.
    "It also is untrue," the President's widow added, "that my husband ordered the son of Gen. Blanquet shot."
    The late President's brother, Julio Madero, also arrived from Vera Cruz to-day.
    The steamship Mexico brought from Mexico to-day the body of Mrs. Charles Griffith, who died from wounds caused by the same shell that killed Mrs. Holmes in Mexico City. Her son accompanied the body.