Iowa
Old Press
Semi-Weekly Iowa State Reporter
Waterloo, Iowa
May 6, 1902
OTTUMWA MURDER TRIAL
Eva Bliss is Charged With a Most Cold Blooded Crime.
Ottumwa, May 6—Powder marks on the hair of a dead dog’s hide have confirmed the belief of the police of this city that Eva Bliss murdered her paramour, Rolla Houdyshell, in this city.
Houdyshell was shot and killed in the house where the couple made their home. The woman claimed that the man came to his death by the accidental discharge of a revolver. Certain peculiarities in the position of the dead man’s body led Chief John Gray to believe that the woman killed him in a fit of anger. Among other things he noticed that the flesh the bullet wound bore no powder marks.
The chief procured a dog and after killing the animal experimented by shooting at it from different lengths. He demonstrated that to have suicided Houdyshell must have held the weapon at a distance greater from his body than the length of his arm, manifestly an impossibility.
Mrs. Bliss was indicted and is now on trial in the district court on the charge of murder, which if sustained is one of the most cold blooded that ever occurred in this city.
[transcribed by LZ, Dec 2019]