Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1877-10-17
M1scEnMg.
sADsUIClDE,
A Runaway Pair. from Iowa
End Their Miserable Lives
With q Razor.


A Runaway Pair. from Iowa
End Their Miserable Lives
With q Razor.
70 Escape a Meeting With a |
Wronged Husband the Sedu-
Ger Cuts His Victims Throat
and Then His Own.
And Bathed In Zach Others Blood
the Wretched Couple Meet Death
In Each Others Arms.
rhe Husband Eaas His search by
discovering tho Dead Beetles In
BxPrsAs wagon.
A chastly Scene In q North Side
Boarding House.
1t isn't often that an injured hus-
band in pursuit of a suspected and
faithless wife, finds her in the en-
brace of her seducer, with four inch
cash in her throat, life extinct, and a
corresponding cut in the throat of the
destroyer of his happiness, and with
the two faces turned up under the
pitiless beatings of q storm cloud,
with mass of curious men and wo-
men standing aghast at the horror.
Robert s. Bell, an engineer on the
Iowa Central Railroad, was in Chi
cago in search of his wife. She had
written him on the 9Th inst, at their
former home, in New Sharon, Iowa,
asking him for $40 to assist her in re-
turning. As the sequel of the singu-
larly crooked and interesting tragedy
will show, Bell was little surprised
to hear of his wife's presence in Chi
cago, and concluded if she was sur
rounded by distressing circumstances
that he would be of moro service to
her in person than any amount of
money he could forward. He arrived
here yesterday morning, and at once
proceeded to the number she had des-
ignated in her letter as her stopping
place. There was nothing at this
point in the shape of boarding
house or residence, and Bell was not
a little stunned by the discovery. He
made survey along this route, how
ever, meeting with no success, until
he approached an officer and made
known to him his situation. No. 100
North Wells street was suggested,
and to that point Bell turned his
weary steps and aching heart. On his
arrival at that place he found it to be
q house Of prostitution, presided over
by the ponderous Nine. Scott. 1t is q
little singular that q man who swears
to his wife's virtue, and still believes
her to be as chaste as Diana to all
save himself, as Bell protested in ia.
vor of his wife, should enter such a
place to inquire after her. But he did
this very thing, and learned that a
woman who called herself Maude
Bell had been stopping there for a
week, but was informed that she was
the wife of another man who came to
sec her every day. The description
given seemed to suit that Of his own
wife. She was in bed, however, and
he was told to call again. Then she
was aroused after his departure, and
enlightened about the early call of a
mysterious man whose description
quickly flashed upon her as she
stood yet in her night attire, as suit
ing that of her own husband. She
dressed and excused herself from
breakfast. She went away about IL
o'clock, and in about fifteen minutes
after, Bell returned and took his
place on the sofa to await her return.
At l O'Clock in the afternoon
A WOMAN CLOSELY vEfLED
and not meanly attired, went to the
dining room of Mrs. O'Brien, at Nos.
30 and 80 North Wells street, and
beckOned to man who was appeas-
ing his hunger within. He went into
the hallway, and the two went up
another flight Of steps together to q
middle room, into which the light
struggled through well-hole in the
building-rOOm No. Ii. What hur-
ried explanations followed, and what
the woman, blanchcd with fright,
and the man fired with jealousy and
alarm, said to each other, are matters
which the imaginations Of the curious
readers can hover over and picture at
their leisure. In twenty minutes the
awful result of the conference was
known. DIR. Alexander Mckay, who
had just come up to his room, on the
same floor, from dinner, stood on the
threshold of his apartment and heard
scufile, and then gasp. A moment
later and he was Mortified at the sight
of
A WOMAN RUSHING DOWN THE CORR
DOR WITH A CASH IN HER THROAT,
and her hands uplifted. Before he
could recover himself, or fully realize
the sight before him, the woman still
gasping for life, the blood squirting
upon the walls, and over her clothing,
fell into the arms of the physician
who stood in the way.
He laid the woman upon the floor,
or rather her own weight bore her
down, the doctor breaking the fall as
well as he could. He had not re-
moved his hands from her head be-
fore man rushed to where he was
bending, and, selling him by the col
lar, threw him almost violently
against the wall. As he did so the
doctor turned and behcld
ANOTHER CHASTITY SIGHT.
The man, with horrifying cash in
his throat, and with his eyes set in
the glare of DEVILS frenzy, fell up
on the woman, who was dead; plac-
ed his arms about her neck, kissed
her, called her an endearing name,
and then, with his arms still tightly
about her, his life went out, while
his blood commingled with that of
the woman whose soul he had sent
headlong into eternity without one
second for an appeal for forgiveness.
1t was all over IN less than three
minutes. So abruptly, sometimes, do
the vicissitudes and missortuncs and
weaknesses under which men
and women groan and bend for
years and years, come to close.
The step into the unknown borders
on the gateway of every life. The
deed over, two lives hurried out,
GOD only knows where, perhaps still
struggling with each other, there
came the frightened landlady, the
breathless boarders with faces twist
ed into every conceivable shape, and
servants crowding upon the scene.
So closely were the clutches of the
man upon the woman that it requir-
ed the strong arms of two men to un.
clasp them. In few minutes more
Officer James Lehman was notified
and then the coroner. The latter
functionary ordered tho bodies to the
morgue, and an express wagon back.
ed up to the front of the building
1t was 3 80 o'clock and the rain was
falling monotonously upon the streets,
and flowing almost sorrowfully down
tho cutters. The two forms were
placed in the conveyance singular
sight to the gaping multitude that
shivered and tiptoed in the driving
elements. At this very moment the
waiting man at 100 North Wells
street, heard that woman's throat
had been cut, and also that the man
who had done the deed had taken his
own life. Bell hurried to the scene
where the rain and the crowd seemed
to be Joined together and edged his
way through the masses to the ex.
press wagon. He leaned over the
| apat. Jaw the face Of tho woman. and