Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-07-15
JACKSONVILLE HORROR.
Details of the SufTocation of the Three
Men Confined in Jail

Details of the SufTocation of the Three
Men Confined in Jail.
JACKSONVILLE, July 14th.-The burning
of the Jail here yesterday and the suffoca.
ton OF the three prisoners continue to ex-
cite much attention owing to the mystery
surrounding the affair
The fire broke out shortly before 6o'clock
in the morning, and attention was first
called to it by the outcry raised by the
prisoners. When the first citizen, Samuel
Taylor, reached the burning building, the
flames were pouring from the front win
dows, and the inmates were still calling for
help. There is but one door leading to the
interior, and it was ablaze and the front
room filled with flames
Immediately after Taylor reached the
building the outCry within ceased, and the
prisoners were undoubtedly dead before the
first bucket of water was thrown. Strepu-
Gus efforts were made to extinguish the
flames, but the fire company made bungling
work OF getting water, and it was fully
thirty minutes before an entrance could be
effected into the front room. II was then
found that the locks on the corridor door
were SO heated that they could not be un-
locked. and sledge was necessary to break
into the cells, which opened on each side
from the corridor.
While the timbers overhead were still
blazing the bodies of The prisoners were
taken out, life having then been extinct in
each man for at least twenty minutes. In
the first cell on the right was the clothed
body of Frank Warner, a native of Han
over, aged about twenty years, committed
to Jail on charge of burglary. From the
second cell on the right was taken the body
OF Newt Cook, also dressed and kneeling
beside his bed. He was man of about
torty-five years, whose antecedents are un-
known. He was committed in Nav last
for larceny. Cook was not mis- right name.
but was assumed by him after his commit
ment.
The third man was confined in the first
or front cell on the left of the entrance. and
he was found in bed and undressed. He
was named Harry or Henry Hoover. and
was about fifty-six years of age. He came
from Michigan to this section, and is said
to have wife living in that State. He
was committed on charge of larceny, and
the Circuit Judge would have heard mo-
ton for writ of habeas corpus by Hoo.
ver's attorney yesterday bad the defendant
been alive. Hoover was veteran in the
late war and had made application for a
pension. A suit for damages against the
county is threatened by his legal represent
ative.
The origin of the FIRE is a mystery. An
inspection of the Jail shows that it did not
originate IN the cells, but in the front of the
building, which was one large room, di-
vided by a low partition into a receiving
room for prisoners and sleeping room for
the guards.
Deputy-Sheriff William Deneff usually
slept in the guards room, but was called
to his ranch to fight a mountain fire the
night before, and failed to find the Sheriff.
James G. Birdsey, to apprise him of the
fact that be was going. Deneff was in his
room in the front of the Jail about $50
O'Clock in the evening and changed his
clothes before leaving for his ranch. He
had lighted candle in a tin candlestick
hanging on a wardrobe in the guards
room, but says he remembers distinctly
having extinguished it before leaving the
building.
The Sheriff was in the habit of sleeping
in building about 100 feet from the Jail,
but his room having become dissgreeable
he had obtained room at the United
States Hotel for the night. and says he had
retired at the time Deneff was hunting for
him the evening before. Birdsey thinks
that the fire was the work of an incendiary:
but the general impression is that it smol-
dered through the night in the Jail, or that
the candle was not extinguished as the
guard supposed.
The finding of the Coroner's Jury was
that the prisoners came to their death from
suffocation, and that the origin of the fire
was unknown. The bodies of the dead
mer were inferred in the Jacksonville
Cemetery this morning, unattended save
by the officers.
There was an insurance of 81 600 on the
building, and It will probably be replaced
by cage cells in more modern building.
An insurance company of San Francisco
carried the risk.