BRUGGEMAN, Fred (d: 1901)

BRUGGEMAN

Posted By: Marilyn O'Connor (email)
Date: 3/22/2006 at 15:04:31

#1:

MYSTERIOUS DEATH

Coroner Whitley was called to the home of Fred Bruggeman in Union township last Friday evening to investigate the strange and mysterious death of Mr. Bruggeman. Mr. Bruggeman had been found dead in his barn.

When found the body was in a kneeling posture, leaning against a post. There was a rope looped losely about his neck the other end tied to a beam over seven feet from the floor.

A post mortem showed that death had been caused by a dislocation of the neck. The jury found that death had been caused by the rope but in whose hands it was not determined.

Mr. Bruggeman was a respectful and prosperous farmer, with no apparent cause for his being the cause of his own death.

Source: Osage News, February 21, 1901
(Credit: M. O'Connor)
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#2:

A MYSTERIOUS DEATH

The death of Fred Bruggeman, a wealthy farmer near Toeterville, is still surrounded with mysteries, says the Stacyville Herald of last week.

On Friday forenoon of last week he left the house and went to another place owned by him, a distance of half a mile or more across the fields, to attend to some stock kept there. He did not return when expected and his son went in search of him. Going to the barn where the stock were sheltered, he found his father leaning against a post, and with a rope around his neck, dead.

The St. Ansgar Enterprise says: Albert carried his father's body to the sleigh and drove home with it, and not wishing to make it so hard for his mother to bear, said nothing aout the circumstances. A little later Henry Brandt, their neighbor, came over and hold them that the coronoer must be sent for. This was done and he arrived about 9 o'clock in the evening.

A coroner's jury was then impaneled and evidence taken. It was shown that the rope was not tied, but merely looped around his neck in a sort of half knot, and was loosely fastened to the beam which was no higher than a man could easily reach.

After examination the coroner went home. Saturday he telegraphed that he would be up Sunday morning. He then sent for Dr. Westenberger to accompany him. Arriving there Sunday morning,

Coroner Whitley and Dr. Westenberger proceeded to make a postmortem examination. Laying open the throat they found that he did not die by strangulation, but upon examining the vertebrae, or back bone, they found that it was dislocated; which had evidently produced almost instant death. In accordance with this finding the coroner's jury brought in a verdict that his death had been caused by the rope in whose hands it was not known.

It is certainly a very strange case, and opinion is greatly divided as to the real cause of his death.

Source: Adams Review, Friday 3-01-1901, page 5, col. 3
(Credit: Mark Ashley, 1/25/2015)