Saturday's Suicides

CARTER, PIERCE, CHESTER, CAMPBELL, BIDDALL, NEUHAUSER, KELTNER

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 2/17/2007 at 10:45:38

"Fairfield Ledger Weekly", April 6, 1881

Two Men Decide that Life is not Worth Living.

Death by one’s own hand is a startling crime, particularly in quiet communities, and our people learned with surprise of two crimes of this kind committed in the county the latter part of the week. The first case was at Lockridge, Saturday morning, where a man jumped from the west bound mail, when it was a short distance west of the station, but no one appeared to think at the time that it was with the intention of self-murder. After jumping from the train the man proceeded to the post office, took a chair near the stove in rather a queer manner, and after going through the contents of his pockets, very deliberately took out his jack-knife and began stabbing himself in the throat. The blood gushed from the wounds in great streams. Messrs. CARTER, Than. PIERCE and others who were present soon engaged in a struggle with the desperate man, and after considerable trouble succeeded in wresting the knife from him, but not until he had inflicted such horrible stabs as to endanger his life. No surgeon was at hand, but the wounds were bandaged as well as possible and a cot prepared in the store, where the man lay until Sheriff CHESTER, accompanied by Dr. CAMPBELL, arrived. In the afternoon the patient was brought to this city and given a room in the jail, where his wounds were more carefully attended to, and where he now lies in a precarious condition. In addition to the self-inflicted wounds it appears that in jumping from the train he alighted astride of the cattle guard, rupturing himself frightfully, and also fractured one of his ankles. His recovery is very doubtful, but he is better at this writing.

Sheriff CHESTER tells us that after entering the post office his first work was to tear in pieces a railroad ticket from Ft. Wayne to San Francisco, which was afterwards put together and is now in possession of the authorities. The ticket was issued to one BIDDALL, presumably this man’s name. A baggage check from Chicago to Council Bluffs was also found on his person and a scrap of paper bearing the name of John NEUHAUSER, Berne P. O., Adams County, Ind., but no money. BIDDALL is a German, about thirty to thirty-four years of age, dark complexion, with mustache, about medium height, comfortably dressed, and is apparently a laboring man. There is little doubt that he is insane, but in his lucid intervals he has told in German that he has a wife and children in the Fatherland, and that he was robbed of a considerable sum of money while on his way west. At times he has begged piteously for some one to kill him and end his suffering. It is evident that he has not been in this country long. He is now in the hands of the county authorities and will receive good care. A letter has been written to the address mentioned above, but no reply received. It is probable that the man referred to may be able to throw some light on the matter. [Ed. note: See also a related article, “A Clue to the Suicide”, at http://iagenweb.org/boards/jefferson/documents/index.cgi?read=146316 .]

Case No. 2 was one of a successful attempt at self-murder. Saturday forenoon John A. KELTNER, who was near by, went to school house No. 6, in Buchanan township, about a mile east of Beckwith, to get a drink. Not finding a cup at the well, he entered the house, the doors being unlocked, and was astonished to see the body of a man suspended from the ceiling. He summoned assistance as soon as possible, and an examination revealed the fact that the body was perfectly cold, frozen almost, and that life had been extinct for many hours, perhaps several days, as the building had not been in use for some time.

No one who saw the body was able to identify it, although some persons thought they had seen a man on the road near that place a few days before who pretty fully answered the description. Whatever the motive of this stranger was it is probably buried with him. Whoever he was his work was carefully and methodically done. He was completely and comfortably dressed, even his hat was on his head, and he wore four shirts. His drawers had been taken off, torn into strips and a rope made of them. This done, he had tied the rope to an iron poker, placed the poker across a scuttle hole in the ceiling, so that it formed a secure cross-bar, adjusted the other end of his rope carefully about his neck, took his place on a table near his improvised scaffold and then swung easily off. [Ed. note: See also a related article, "The Would-Be Suicide", at http://iagenweb.org/boards/jefferson/documents/index.cgi?read=146317 .]

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s) mentioned.