Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-12-25
BURIED ALIVE
The Sickening Story of Human Being
Buried Before Life Was Extinct.
An Awful Scene Disclosed on the Opening Of
the Grave-The Coffin Split in
the Death Struggle.
Special to the Gazette.

Special to the Gazette.
DENVER, Col. Dec. ia horrible
story of man being buried alive, while
supposed to be dead, is published here.
On Sunday, November 80, Louis Bren-
ner, thirty five years of age, an en-
ploye of the South Park railway shops,
was supposed to have died from over
indulgence in malt stimulants.
His funeral was set for De-
cember 2, under the auspices
of one of the local tribes of red men.
There was nothing unusual about the
services until the cofhned body was
placed in the hearse. Then for some
reason the horses which had been used
for this purpose for years refused to go
and became so unruly that they
HAD TO BE CHANGED
for another team. When the cortege
was ready to move the horses of Henry
Speck, one of the mourners, positively
refused to move and he was obliged to
procure another animal. To add to the
list uncommon and uncanny events q
runaway team crossed the funeral pro-
cession on the way to the River
side cemetery and collided with
buggy containing two of the
friends of the deceased. The men
escaped injury, but the buggy was badly
damaged. Arriving at the cemetery the
coffin was dropped from the hearse by
laundering attendants, to the disgust of
the mourners. Another and more sick
ening accident awaited. As the coffin
was being lowered into the grave one of
the ropes broke, and for a moment the
people were horrified by seeing the coffin
standing on end IN the grave. Accord
ing to the burial services of the red men
II is provided for the liberation of a dove
from a small box
PLACED ON THE COFFIN
just as the first handful Of dirt is thrown
into the grave. This was finally done.
After the coffin had been properly placed
in the grave, with feeling akin to SUI
perstitious terror some of the mourners
saw the dove fiutter from its cage and
alight at the very edge of the
grave. 1t would not take wings
until frightened away by the
men who piled the dirt over
the narrow home OF the deceased. There
were unusually thoughtful faces in the
procession that wendell its way slowly
from the city of the dead. The more SUI
perstitious began to ponder over the
matter, and finally decided to dislnter
the remains. This work was done one
week ago last Sunday, and to their IN
speakabIe horror they discovered as soon
as the lid of the coffin box was raised
that the coffin itself was split and the
glass in
THE COVER WAS BROKEN
as If the dead had come to life and in the
unutterable agony of realization OF his
position had struggled with the mad des-
peration of hopelessness and help essness
TO free himself from the very grasp of
death whose horrors can be but feebly
imagined by the living. The coffin lid
was raised and the full horror burst upon
them. The body was lying on its face.
The Innings of the coffin had been torn
to shreds. The hair was pulled
out of the head. The arms were bent
and the hands so tightly clenched that
the finger nails had been sunk into the
flesh The face of the dead was dis
torted from the awful struggle through
which the man had passed, and the
cheeks showed that in his frenzy
the man entombed alive had dug
his nails deep into his flesh. Horror
stricken at the discovery they had made,
the friends first made sure that life was
indeed extinct and then replaced the
id of the co fin, refilled the grave and
left the Mace