Omaha daily bee., 1893-05-21
BODY STOLEN FROM A CRAVE
Resurrectionists Remove the Remains Of
Mrs. Rudolph Huss from Forest Lawn.
DOCTORS WE'RE ANXIOUS FOR AN AUTOPSY
Medical Colleges scarchcd--A Perfect Char
mel House of Human Fragments
No Trace of the Corpse
Could 30 Found.

The ghouls who gain livelihood by
grave robbing have again visited this city
and once more they are pursuing their ne
farious calling.
Out at 1904 North Twenty-fourth street,
for more than ten years, Rudolph e. Huss
has resided, his only companion being his
wife, Julia. Both of these people had
fought lifes battle for more than thirty
years together and had succeeded in laying
away goodly store of worldly goods for
rainy day, should one come during their de-
clning years. They were well-to-do people,
as the saying goes, but during the past two
or three years the health Of Mrs Huss had
been poor, she having been afflicted with an
incurable disease, one tnat bafIled the skill
of the most eminent physicians of the city.
Gradually her condition grew worse until
last Monday, when she died. The doctors
urged that they should be allowed to per-
form post mortem that the interests Of
medical science could be advanced, but the
husband protested, saying that the knife OF
the surgeon should not mutilate the remains
of his beloved wife, The preparations for
the funeral were made and Wednesday the
body was laid at rest beneath the green
grass that grows so luxuriantly in Forest
Lawn cemetery, but chat was not to be
final resting place, as subsequent events
have developed.
Found Empty Grave.
Yesterday morning James Y. Craig, the
superintendent of the cemetery, was walking
about the grounds and as he passed the
grave where Mrs Huss had been buried he
noticed that the loose earth had been thrown
upon another grave near by, and also that
the soddlng did not look neat and clean.
Calling the grave digger to the spot MIR.
Cra ig reprimanded him for doing his work in
nc1n ,1,r TN
sisted that the grave had been molested by
some person and that it was not in the same
condition as when sodded over day or two
before. Superintendent Craig could not be-
lieve that the grave had been tampered
with, but to satisfy his own mind he secured
two shovels and at once he and his assistant
went to digging in the direction of the coffin.
Scarcely had they thrown off the top soil
before they found flowers mixed with tho
earth. These they knew had been on the
coffin the day when the remains were in
tered. Even then they could not believe
that any person would be so reckless as to
visit Omaha's largest cemetery and steal a
corpse.
Digging a short distance deeper, the men
found white slipper, one that had been
placed upon one of the feet Of the deceased
The finding of this satisfied them that the
grave robber had been there and that he
had completed his disreputable work.
Anxious to know the worst, they hurriedly
threw the remainder of the earth from the
grave and a few moments later they came
upon the box which encased the coffin This
had been crushed in, as with some heavy IN
Strument, and upon taking out the loose pieces
| of board they soon learned that the rich
| casket had been treated in the same manner,
but, what was still worse, the corpse was
| gone.
Work of Expert Resurrectionists.
That it was the work of skillful grave
| robbers is made apparent by the fact that
thay had worked in SyStemntiC manner.
| Everything indicated that they had dug
| down at the head of the grave until they
reached the box, which they crushed. Hav-
| ing succeeded in doing this the indications
| are that they simply split the lid of the head
| of the casket and drew the corpse out.
Upon making these discoveries Mr.. Craig
| came to the city yesterday and ut once
closeted himself with Chief Of Detectives
the facts which are in his possession.
After that he swore out a couple of search
warrants, which were placed in the hands
of the detectives. Armed with these docu-
| ments and with Chief Haze at their head,
| the men went to both OF the medical col
leges of the city and there made rigid ex-
| animation of the dissecting rooms, failing,
| however, to find the object OF their search,
| though they found enough to convince them
| that the Board Of Health of the city should
| at once take measures to abate several nui-
! sances.
At the Omaha Medical college the officers
| found a regular charnel house, as corpses
| and portions of corpses were scattered about
| with the most reckless abandon. In the
| picking vat they found the bodies of seven
white men, two colored men and one woman,
| all packed in box 7x8 feet square and par
TALLY filed with brine. Aside from this
| there were tubs and boxes filled with human
| flesh sitting in the corners and upon the
tables in the dissecting room, while other
| boxes and barrels contained arms, legs and
heads of subjects which had bsen partially
| dissected.
The officers estimate that they found the
remains of at least twenty-five persons about
| the institution.
| DR. Coffman, the physician who attended
Mrs. Huss during her lifetime, was greatly
surprised yesterday when informed that
| her grave had been robbed. Her decease,
he said, was not of such an uncommon
character that physician would care for
the remains for the purpose of making a
| post mortem and he could not see why the
medical students should think of doing such