Jeremiah Velasco "Jud" Storm (1857-1913)

STORM

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 5/17/2021 at 16:53:11

From Nevada Representative September 12, 1913 (front page)

JUD V. STORM DEAD.

Victim of Mystery in Des Moines.

Jud V. Storm, formerly a well known and successful farmer of this county, later a successful farmer of Calhoun county and recently a resident of Dallas county near Adel, was found dead by police early Wednesday morning on east 1st street between Walnut street and Court avenue in Des Moines. How he came to his death is still a subject of debate and conjecture; but he had a hole in the top of his head and fracture at the base of his skull. There are suggestions by some of the police that he fell and hurt himself; but the more reasonable theory is that he was hit near the base of the skull with a sand-bag and on top of the head with some instrument and that the was thrown out on the street afterwards. The locality is one that a ----ent and well dressed man might hesitate about going through alone in the day time and that none but a squad of police want to trifle with at night. There are two stories about how Storm came to be in that locality, one is that he bought the drinks for a crowd of men in a saloon on Court avenue about six o'clock Tuesday evening and the other is that he and a young man and young woman had an automobile ride during the evening and that he got out at Walnut and 1st streets and started south. The former story is open to question about his being in Des Moines so early in the afternoon or evening, it being certain that he was in Dallas county for the most of the day; and the second story is substantiated to the extent that the driver of the taxi-cab is able to produce Storm's note book and false teeth, which he says he found in the automobile. Mrs. Storm and on of their sons went down from Adel Wednesday and reclaimed the body, taking it to Adel for burial.

The report of this event is very much of a shock to Mr. Storm's friends in this county. The general inferences are that he was killed in a dive or waylaid on his way to a dive. The inference my be founded on insufficient evidence and it is certainly true that the slate of facts they assume has not been proven to exist; but the locality is one in which men who value their reputations would not like to be found dead, and any such man going there would want to have an adequate explanation and witnesses to prove its truth. Mr. Storm was a man of considerable fortune, somewhere in his fifties as to age, the father of a numerous family, and himself a member of a well-known and much esteemed family formerly numerous in this county.

The Des Moines papers have had trouble in straightening out Mr. Storm's relationships. He was a son of John M. Storm who came to this county in the very early 80's with a family partly grown and partly growing. J. V. was one of the older lot of children and later moved away as stated. A younger half-brother was Prof. A. Storm formerly of the Iowa State College and now of Minnesota University. Dr. A. B. Storms who was formerly president of the Iowa State College was of a different family and his name differed in the addition of a letter "s."