The morning call., 1891-12-23
A HORRIBLE BUTCHERY.
How John Bocher of Chicago Was Killed
for a Paltry Sum.

How John Bocher Of Chicago Was Killed
for Paltry Sum.
When the engineer of the Shniedewend &
Lee Company's printing press factory on
Leo street, near Archer avenue, Chicago,
went TO work Friday morning at 6 o'clock,
he found the door of the factory locked. He
was surprised, for it was the custom Of
Night Watchman John Bocher, steady old
German, to open the door after removing
the ashes and preparing the furnace for
firing. The engineer forced an entrance
aud groped through the dark machine-shop
toward the little office in the north of the
building. A pane of glass in the partition
between the machine-shOp and the Office
was broken. just outside this partition, in
the machine-shop, the body of the old
watchman lay in puddle of blood. 1t was
cold and stiff, and the life had apparently
been mauled out of it hours before. The
engineer slipped in the blood and almost
fell over the corpse. The pockets were
turned inside out and every article of value
In the old Germans possession had been
taken.
The story of the bloody deed and of the
struggle for life made by this ifty-eight-
year-old man was plainly written on the
floor and walls of the machine-shop. Most
of the forty or fifty wounds on the bald
head, the throat and the arms of the watch
man were on the left side. Some of them
were slight cuts. such as glancing blow
would make, others were plainly gashes
made by a dull knife, and the rest, which
We're the wounds that caused death. were
ragged holes through the skull. One of
them in the left temple was an inch and
half across. 1t was made by stone as big
as mans fist, which was found near the
body.
The old watchman had left his revolver
on desk, and made his rounds through the
building. He was returning to the Office
where his lunch and can of beer were, and
was not more than few feet from the door
when the robbers sprang upon him. The
wounds show that one Of the men must
have had a knife, while the other used the
stone. Bocher had been powerful man in
his day, and he was still sturdy and full of
fight. That he made good struggle for his
life in that dark machine-shop was ap-
parent For yards around the door of the
Office the floor was covered with dry blood.
polished by the slippery feet of the plucky
old watchman and his murderers. The
walls were spattered with red spots. The
broken pane of glass looked as il it had
been shattered by mans elbow. In places
on the floor finger marks were seen, where
some one of the three had sprawled. The
struggle was uneven, and the watchman.
still fighting back, but more feebly now,
as the blood poured into his eyes,
reeled toward the office door. The marks
on the floor indicated where he fell,
and the pine door of the office showed
his last vain attempt to reach his revolver
About waist high on the white boards the
marks of two bloody hands were distinct.
Every finger was marked as if the hands
had been pressed hard against the door.
Then they slipped, leaving irregular
blotches below the distinct marks. A foot
above the floor the bloody landmarks
showed distinct again, where the watchman
had attempted to raise himself. He either
rolled over in the death agony or was rolled
over by the robbers when they pounced upon
him for his money, because the body was
found three or four feet from the door,
All this was done for S27 30 and an old
fashioned silver watch, worth S5 more.
According to the Chicago Herald the men
who killed him did not enter the Office.
Not paper or book was disturbed, and
there was no sign that the lock of the safe
had been tampered with. When the mur-
derers took the old mans little wealth they
crept down through the long cellar and got
out of the building by window on the Leo
street front. The window is below the
street level, and one of the men in elm bing
up placed his bloody fingers on the edge Of
the sidewalk, leaving plain mark there.