John Turner

TURNER, SEWELL, CONNELL, BURKE, MCCARTY, KELLY

Posted By: Patrick Turner (email)
Date: 2/6/2004 at 09:08:27

Source: Cascade Pioneer, Cascade, Iowa
November 8, 1878 - Page 1, Column 3

An Attempt To Murder!

John Turner, a Garryowen Farmer, was Brutally Beaten and Left for Dead,

By Unknown Parties, On the Highway. He Is Now In a Precarious Condition.

On Sunday night November 3rd, John Turner, of Garryowen, while on his way home from Connell & Burke’s store was brutally beaten, stabbed and left for dead on the highway by parties unknown to him.

Turner, in the company with Matt Sewell, left the store of Connell & Burke between 8 and 9 o’clock, p.m. and rode together until they reached the forks in the road south of the Garryowen church, where they separated. Turner proposed to take a near cut home across the fields and dismounted for the propose of letting down the fence, but re-considered the matter and concluded there would be too many fences to let down and put up, he therefore remounted his horse, and just at that moment two or three persons, also mounted, rushed upon him and he was struck with a club and knocked from his horse. Sewell, who had only gone about two hundred yards, heard Turner cry out, and turned back and found him lying on the ground apparently dead, and a gash behind and below his ear apparently made with a knife, also a slight wound on his breast which was done with a sharp instrument.

Mr. Turner was carried to the resident of Father Kelly, where he remained until the next morning, and is now at Mrs. McCarty’s and in a precarious condition.

Turner says that he does not know that he has an enemy on the face of the earth and has no idea who made the assault, but thinks that I was a mistake and intended for some other man.