Affolter, Lillian Ruth

AFFOLTER, WISEMAN, ORR, BLIVEN

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 3/20/2011 at 23:42:04

The Brooklyn (IA) Chronicle

FORMER BROOKLYN WOMAN MURDERED

Mrs. Lillian Affolter is Murdered By Disappointed Lover at Chico, California

Mrs. Lillian Affolter, known to many Brooklyn people, was the victim of a tragic murder at Chico, Calif., on September 14. Evidence shows that she was murdered by a disappointed suitor who took his own life after shooting Mrs. Affolter three times. Mrs. Affolter is the daughter-in-law of Mrs. Fred Affolter of this city and is a sister of Walter Bliven, recently of Grinnell, and now of Pasadena. She also lived in Grinnell at one time.

Following is a part of the story of the murder which we clip from the Chico Enterprise:

Love rebuffed and possibly financial difficulties led to the shooting sometime Tuesday night of Mrs. Lillian Affolter followed by the suicide of William J. Wiseman, local suit salesman, in an automobile found at 4:30 yesterday afternoon on the Golf Links road near the Hooker Oak Swimming Pool.

Mrs. Affolter was last seen alive Tuesday evening at 6:30 when she left the J.C. Penney Company's store where she had completed her first day as an employee for that firm.

When she failed to arrive at her home the matter was reported to the police at about 8:30 that evening by a neighbor. A search was started yesterday forenoon and ended when Officer Al Burge acting on a tip from J.P. Smith, found the car containing the two bodies.

Smith told Officer Burge that at about 8 o'clock yesterday morning he had taken his dog out toward the golf links for exercise. He had passed a Dodge touring car, he said, about half way off the road which contained a man and a woman but that he had thought they were asleep in the car and did not molest them. Her head was lying in his lap and his head was lying on the back of the seat. Struck somewhat by the positions he turned his automobile around after traveling a short distance and had again driven by the car and looked in at the couple. At that time he noted the woman's eyes were open and passed on thinking that it was a couple who might have been out all night and were "sleeping it off."

A reconstruction of the affair by the officers indicates that Wiseman was driving and while the car was still in motion had placed the pistol against the woman's back just to the left of the spine when he fired the first shot. The bullet went through the body emerging just above the right breast. She then crumpled forward, after which Wiseman fired two more shots into her back, one emerging just below the right breast and the other just above the right side of the pelvis.

Apparently Wiseman then straightened the crumpled body and laid it across his lap after which he placed the pistol against his right temple and fired, the bullet coming out on the opposite side of his head. His death was instantaneous, police say. The left front door of the car was open and the pistol, a 38 calibre Smith & Wesson, was lying on the running board out of view of motorists who passed the car during the day.

The condition of the bodies indicated that death had taken place at least eighteen hours prior to discovery and some difficulty was experienced in removing them from the cramped space in the front seat.

Mrs Affolter and her two children June, 15 and William, 9, came a month ago to Chico from Gridley where she had been visiting a half-brother of her dead husband. She had come in response to an advertisement inserted in local papers by Wiseman for a housekeeper. According to neighbors Wiseman and Mrs. Affolter, who bears only the highest reputation, had a disagreement and she set out to hunt work, obtaining employment in the J.C. Penney Company's store on Main street.

The children have been taken to Gridley to be cared for by the brother-in-law, J.L. Orr and wife, aside from whom Mrs. Affolter is survived by a brother, Walter M. Bliven, of Pasadena; and another married sister in Escondido whose name has not been learned.

Mrs. Affolter was a native of Grinnell, Iowa, and was 37 years of age.