Murrow, Charles c1884 - 1909

MURROW, LOWE

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 9/25/2019 at 16:22:54

Source: Twice-A-Week Plain Dealer Oct. 8, 1909, 2, C6

Charles Murrow Slain by Unknown Assassin at His Home Near Des Moines.
CHARLES E. MURROW, aged twenty-five, unmarried, and a prominent farmer and dairyman living a mile east of the state fair grounds, Des Moines, was murdered in his bed while he slept, and although three men have been apprehended by the police on suspicion, the crime is as much of a mystery as ever.
Murrow comes from a prominent family and was in partnership with his brother, Ben Murrow, who was married two years ago to Miss Etta Lowe, one of the belles of the countryside.
As far as evidence goes, there has been no family trouble and each brother carried $2,000 life insurance for the other’s benefit.
Ben Murrow was awakened by a shot and discovered the lamp, which was always left burning in the next room, extinguished. He lit the lamp and started to investigate. Entering his brother's room, he found him dead in his bed, the covers slightly disturbed and powder marks on the left temple, where the 35-caliber revolver bullet had entered. He found fifteen-year-old John Lowe, his wife’s brother, still sleeping on a cot, with coats thrown over his head by the murderer. Going to the telephone to give the alarm, he found the wire cut.
Then he grabbed his rifle and started for the L. Brown residence, across the road, to alarm the neighbors. As he emerged from the house he says he heard a second shot. Soon the neighbors were aroused and the authorities summoned.
William and Charles Barlow, two simple minded hunters and fishers living two miles south on the Des Moines river, were taken into custody, but as no evidence of a definite character was found against them, they were released, but will be watched. Bloodhounds were used and took the trail to the Barlow cabin from the Murrow home and another trail back. This is the strongest evidence against the Barlows, if it is evidence.
When the house was robbed, $35 was taken from a trunk. The Barlows formerly worked for the Murrow brothers and they were suspected because they knew the arrangement of the interior of the house and that the doors were never locked. Whoever committed the crime knew the habits of the family and was familiar with the interior of the house.
The crime has caused such intense excitement that it has preyed upon the minds of some. Frank Seitz, a simple minded Des Moines man, thought about it so much that he made a confession to the police that he was hired to kill Charles E. Murrow. When he was questioned by Sheriff Ben Ness it developed that he knew nothing about, the interior of the house or surrounding country, and the authorities think he has brooded over the crime and the mystery surrounding it so much that he has gone temporarily insane.