The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-02-22
NOTE OF A SUICIDE
1T WAS FOUND YESTERDAY IN THE
COURT HOUSE TOWER.


However, has Been Here and was Noted
by the Police for His Strange Actions
He said He Committed Crime and was
of No More Service TO the World-His
People Live at Peabody-Poliee are In
vestigating the Case.
There was a thrilling sensation at
the court house yesterday when the
janitor came running down stairs pale
and breathless with a piece of paper
in his hand.
A crowd of county officers gathered
around him and when he got his
wind ne said there was man dead up
stairs.
who is it?" they all asked at once
but he could not tell them. He said
that he never went in 10 look because
he had no light and the place was as
dark as the tomb. He then handed
them the following note which he
found sticking in the lock of the door
that led to the tower:
Wichita, Ks, Feb. 20, 1896.
'"To my Friends.
Dear Friends: 1 trust some of you
will send this piece of paper home TO
my dear mother and my dear broken
hearted sister at Peabody, Kansas. l
Will tell you my story: 1 have no hope
of happiness in the future. My doom
is sealed l am haunted by a crime
done by me twenty-one years ago. L
am now going 10 kill myself, as this is
a good place 10 do it at. Tell my
mother TO bury me in a plain box,
haul me to the poorest grave in the
cemetery in a dray, don't have any
funeral and don't have no preacher
around me as 1 hate the snakes with
all my heart. Well, good bye. You
will find my body in the northeast COR
ner of the attic in the floor.
Love TO mother and sister.
WILL PLANTBEAD.
''P. S.-Tell mother not to weep, as 1
was of no more service 10 the world"
Just as the deputy county clerk, John
Chain, finished reading the note a re-
porter for the Eagle dropped in and he
Mr.. Chain, and Sheriff Cone. went on
a tour of investiga ton looking for the
body. The northeast attic is as dark
as the bottom of the gas well, and the
searchers had TO grope their way
around there expecting every moment
to fall over the body of Mr.. Plantbead.
There is his hat" said Sheriff Cone,
and the door entering another dark
room was forced open but the hat that
all three of the searchers saw through
the glass door was not there. II began
TO look as if the place was haunted,
and they again went back to the spot
from which they saw the hat before.
They saw the same hat again and kept
their eyes on il as they walked to-
wards it. The hat gradually became
more shadowy until it disappeared al
together. This incident was very
strange and caused the searchers to
become a little shakey. II was then ac-
cidentally discovered that what was
thought to be the hat was nothing
more than the reflection of a piece of
an old kettle on the glass door that led
TO the dark chamber. Matches were
procured and a thorough search made
but no dead man could be found al
though there were plenty fresh tracks
on the dust covered floor of the dark
chamber.
The whole thing is probably a fake
or practical joke and yet there are
some plausible features about it. There
has been such man in town and he
was a strange and mysterious charac-
ter. He has been calling for letters
two or three times a day at the post
office for two weeks, and so far as
known never received any. He would
sit for hours on the bench at the south
end of the postoffice corridor and never
talk to anybody. In a word, he SEEM
ed to be a man who was harboring
some dark secret that weighed heavily
on his conscience.
Plantbead was also known to the
police who, when he first came to
town, watched him closely on account
of his suspicious looks and manners.
They thought, however, that he was a
white line or opium fiend and they
soon quit watching him. He usually
loafed about the postoffice in the ray
time and at night he used to sit for
hours in stairway about $50 North
Main street.
The officers while believing that the
note was written as a practical joke
nevertheless think that there might be
something in it, and they are making
further Investigations. They are now
for Piantbead in hopes of be-
ing more apt TO find him alive than
dead and thus settle the mystery of
the note found in the key-hole of the
tower door.