Pansy TURNBULL

TURNBULL, BUNKER, BAILEY, GIBBONS, BEACH, LUTON, HOWARD, NEVIOUS

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 3/10/2009 at 07:03:09

The Mount Ayr Record-News, 1926

GIRL MEETS TRAGIC DEATH

Found Insensible at Street Fair-
Dies without Regaining Consciousness.

Tragedy of tragedies! The community stands aghast and the community heart is filled with poignant grief. The life of a promising young woman, reared in a christian community, loved by her friends and highly respected by her acquaintances, passes out as the result of - what? Up until noon today the affair is shrouded in mystery and grief-clouds, dark and foreboding, hang low over the community. That a crime most hoffible and revolting was responsible for the passing of the young life is thought to be the only solution and officers in Tylor, Ringgold and Union counties, in the discharge of their duties, are exerting every effort to ascertain the facts.

At the street fair in Clearfield Thursday evening Pansy TURNBULL, 17-year old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. TURNBULL of Diagonal, was found insensible and apparetnly injured and in company with a strange young man one block east of the business district. She was taken to a physician, but in her distracted condition was unable to make explanation and on the advice of the physisican was taken to the home in Diagonal where she died a few hours later without regaining consciousness.

Miss TURNBULL, in company with her sister and Mr. and Mrs. Cleve BUNKER, went to Clearfield Thursday afternoon to attend the street fair and when the other members of the party were ready to return home she was not present. A search was instituted and the missing girl was found one block east of Main street in the conditions as stated above.

Officers were notified and Dr. Samuel BAILEY, coroner of Ringgold county, went Friday to Diagonal and instituted an inquest. Evidence disclosed the probability that the girl had been drugged and her stomach was sent to Iowa City for chemical analysis of its contents, but the result of the finding has not been made public. Bruises on the head and body of the girl led the officers to believe she had met with violence.

A number of arrests were made at Creston, several young men being held for investigation, and John GIBBONS, of Creston, John BEACH of Lenox, Terrance LUTON of St. Joseph, Mo., and Hal and John HOWARD, brothers, of Creston, are held in the Taylor county jail at Bedford. The five young men pleaded not guilty to charges of murder before Mayor NEVIOUS, acting as justice, Saturday. The mayor ordered them held without bond.

The coroner's inquest which was begun Friday was continued until Monday and a sealed verdict was returned by the jury, the contents of which will not be made known until after the special session of the Taylor county grand jury which was called yesterday. A telephone message from Bedford, received just as the Record-News goes to press, conveys the information that the grand jury is still in session and the investigation will not be concluded before Thursday.

NOTE: Pansy May TURNBULL was born in 1908, and died in 1926 with interment at the Diagonal Cemetery, Ringgold County, Iowa.

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, 2008