Iowa
Old Press
Muscatine Journal
Muscatine, Muscatine county, Iowa
December 6, 1915
FIND CAR, BLOOD-STAINED-STORED IN MOLINE GARAGE -
Murderer of Mrs. McDonough flees to Illinois after crime - FIXES
DATE OF CRIME
The Ford automobile, in which Mrs Anna Mcdonough and her son John
left Oskaloosa, November 4, to drive to the home of her daughter
in New Boston Ill, has been found, with the cushions of the rear
seat drenched with blood. In the Motor Garage Moline Ill. The car
was left in the garage the night of November 6, and the man who
received it said he took no particular notice of the person who
drove it in and therefore couldn't furnish a description. The
back of the front seat was scratched and marred, bearing mute
evidence in the fact that there must have been a struggle in the
tenneau. The car was damaged in no other way. The garage in
Moline say that when the car was brought into the garage the
driver left instructions that it be overhauled and said that he
would return for it the following Thursday.
Thursday came and the car was uncalled for. A short time ago it
was decided to move the garage to a new location and a letter was
written to the authorities at Des Moines giving the license
number and asking that the owner be notified. Investigation at
DesMoines disclosed the fact that the car in the Moline garage
was the long sought missing automobile that had belonged to Mrs.
Anna McDonough, whose dead and decomposing body was found in the
deserted house at the top of Elsie Hill at noon on November 12.
Verifies Sheriffs Theory
A reconstruction of the events before and after the finding of
the body of Mrs McDonough would put the date of the murder
probably the night of November 5. According to Sheriff Wileys
theory. John McDonough and his mother left home November 4 and
started for the home of Mrs. McDonoughs' daughter in New Boston
Ill. Arriving at Columbus Junction they probably stopped for a
time, but it is supposed that they spent the night of the 4th at
some point the other side of Columbus Junction. Upon leaving
Columbus Junction, reconstructing events from the sheriffs'
viewpoint. John and his mother began to quarrel and in the
darkness John mistook the road and turned off on the branch that
runs past Knights place, where the bloodstained hat was later
found. There the quarrel culminated in a struggle and not knowing
that his mother was dead or fatally hurt, John turned around and
drove on to Muscatine. Then finding that his mother was dead he
came to the top of Eisle Hill with its lonely, deserted house
offering the best possible means of concealment.
Flees Through Muscatine.
After placing the body beneath the trap door, he drove on through
Muscatine, probably crossing the river here and thence on to
Moline, where he stored the car, never intending to claim it. The
most probable theory of his subsequent actions is that he went on
to Chicago and lost himself.
When the Oskaloosa authorities were notified from Des Moines that
the McDonough auto had been found in a Moline garage the
communicated the fact to the dead womans' son-in-law, George
Haber, who went to Moline, claimed the car and drove it back to
Oskaloosa, passing thrugh Muscatine yesterday noon.
Sheriff Wiley says that John McDonough, son of the murdered
woman, and who is suspected of the crime, will probably sooner or
later turn up in some mining community as he is a coal miner by
trade. It is said that he had some trouble in Colorado not long
ago and was forced to leave the state.
[transcribed by Valerie, October 2013]