Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-06-26
TRIPLE SUICIDE.
DELIBERATELY TAKING POISON.

The Three Young Girls Emo Concluded to
End Their Lives.
A brief telegram from Danville, ILL.,, on
Thursday announced the suicide OF two
young girls and the parrow escape from
death from poisoning of one OF their com:
panions. They had all taken arsenic and
suffered terrible agony.
Mrs. Brown keeps . boarding house at
the corner of Jackson and Van Buren
streets. Danville. She employs several
girls in her house as domestics and
three of them employed in that Ca
pacity we're Ella Mills, daughter
Of Danville wagon-maker Matte
Ogle, who has sister, Mrs. James Brier,
living in the city, and Mary Jones, the
daughter of respectable parents. These
girls bore the reputation of being lively.
cheerful and we'll behaved, and attended
to their duties in manner which gave
rise to no suspicion that they would take
their own lives. 1t seems, however, that
they were discouraged. Perhaps their
work was too hard, and they talked the
matter over and concluded that it would
be better for them to die. Ella Mills sat
down on Wednesday and announced her
intention of committing suicide in the fol-
lowing letter to her sister:
"DEAR LITTLE SISTER: have resolved
to put myself out Of the world. have to
work out all the time and if didn't l
would have to 20 home. Then people
would talk, because my dear father lives
with fancy woman-sO people say.
Matte Ogle was an orphan, but why
Mary Jones should consent to the scheme
cannot be accounted for. Ella Mills was
seventeen years of age, Mary Jones twelve
and Matte Ogle fourteen. They borrowed
twenty-five cents of Mrs. Brown on We'd
nesday night, bought some arsenic, divided
it into three doses and swallowed it. About
o'clock Mary Jones was taken with vio-
lent purging and vomiting, but. mo one out
side Of the trio suspected its cause. The
sick girl was supplied with stimulants.
During the night Mrs. Brown found Ella
Mills lying upon the porch in great pain
and vomiting at short intervals mucous,
Shiny substance mixed with blood.
She Was carried into the house and
placed upon a bed, and all possi-
BILE relief afforded her. A little later
Matte Ogle was found outdoors enduring
the same pains and vomiting in the same
manner. Drs. Clark aud Balscy were
called, but two of the girls were beyond
all relief. Emma Mills was already
dying. Her pulse was almost still, her
eyes were dilated and the air from her
lungs was cold. She was dead at 4
O'Clock. Matte Ogle died about twenty
minutes later. Just before she died Ella
Mills was entreated to tell what sho had
taken and she with great difficulty man
aged to say that she had taken nothing
only some candy. Mattio Ogle nevor raj
lied from the state of collapse in which she
was found by Doctors Clark and Balsey,
but died without uttering a single word.
Mary Jones was very reticent about tho
whole matter and almost refused to speak
at all. She said that between seven and
eight o'clock they all took tablespoonful
of white powder which Ella Mills had
procured somewhere in TinchertOwn. 1t
has developed since that it was procured
at the drug store of Oakwood Il Bennett:
They diluted tho powder with water and
it bad the taste of a copper piece held in
the mouth. DR.. Clark thinks that Miss
Jores will recover. He attributes her
escape to the fact that the poison took ef-
feet on her sooner than upon the others
and before it had been so thoroughly dis
seminated throughout her system.