Case of Poisioning-1871

WAGONER, TOONEY, GASTER

Posted By: cheryl moonen (email)
Date: 12/13/2017 at 17:14:56

La Porte City Progress, Wednesday, October 18, 1871, La Porte City, Iowa, Page: 2

STATE NEWS

At upper Sandusky, last Friday, a terrible case of poisoning was exposed. Twelve years ago Barnabas Wagoner, a solider of 1812, married a girl not out of her teens, while he had reached his three score and ten. They had lived together since the date of their marriage, apparently happy, but it seems she had tired of him of late, and had formed a plot, with her brother, Hobert Gaster, to get rid of the old man. They engaged a traveling doctor named Tooney, to do they work, agreeing to pay him $200 therefor. Tooney procured some strychnine, and Wagoner’s wife made some bread and soup for the old man, he being sick. The doctor put the poison into it. It was given to Wagoner the morning of Sept 21, and in the evening he was dead. The $200 not being forthcoming, the doctor got angry, and threatened to expose the deed. This did not bring the money. Friday morning he gave information, before the proper official, and delivered himself up. Mrs. Wagoner and her brother were arrested, and the trio are now in jail. The body of Wagoner was disinterred, and a post mortem examination will be held upon it.