The herald., 1897-05-29
Or Suicide Resulting From
Dementia
NEVADA OFFICERS PUZZLED
BY FACTS SURROUNDING MRS.
GEHRIGS DEATH
An Insane Woman Found Hanging
and With Her Skull Broken in
Four Places
Associated Press Special Wire.

Associated Press Special Wire.
NEVADA, Cal. May 2s.-The woman
whose body was found hanging this
morning at the rear of the National Ex
change Hotel, was identified at noon by
George Gehrig, a well-known local
brewer, as his wife. She left home We'd
nesday evening at seven o'clock, and the
husbands efforts to find her have been
unavailing till now. She sent letter
written in German to the Daily Tran
script saying that virtue and honesty
are the noblest qualities Of mankind
and charging her husband with being
false to her. Gehrig and their neighbors
say she has been acting Queerly for some
time and they believe she was insane.
She leaves six children. The case con-
tinues to be wrapped in mystery. The
remains have just been removed from
the City Hall to the Gehrig home. Pub
lie opinion is divided, a majority of the
people believing it Is a murder. Tho
officers are conducting an investigation
on the theory that the woman was beat
en- and then hung by the assailant
For nearly six hours the dead body
of the woman lay on a table at the city
hall. Shortly before noon George Geh-
rig, a brewer Of this city, identified the
body as that of his wife, who left him
and their six children last Wednesday.
The tragedy is most mysterious. The
facts that her domestic life had been
unhappy ever since she came here in
the early eighties with her husband
and that on Wednesday last she had
- L.. o~; Isv,r k<.v
complaining of her treatment, added to
her sensational flight from home, would
indicate that she had taken her own life
But the officers who have been investi-
eating industriously all day think they
have many and strong grounds for sus-
pecting that murder has been commit
ted
Late Wednesday evening Mrs. Geh-
rig came to a hotel and registered as
Mrs. Francis Heitler and paid in ad-
vance for a nights lodging. Next
morning she failed to appear. and it
was noon when chambermaid finally
unlocked the door and entered the room
The chambermaid found her still in bed
and asked her IL she was i'll. Instead
of replying the woman began to sing.
| She went all day without eating and
on Thursday evening she roamed about
the hail. This morning about o'clock
as officer Carr was passing through the
woodshed he found her hanging by the
neck from a piece of clothes line that
had been fastened to a tenpenny nail
driven in the side of the shed. She was
cold and stiff. Her feet being drawn up
and her knees touching the ground.
There were several gashes in her head.
There was a pool of blood thirty feet
away and at another point a pile of
split wood was bespattered with blood,
two or three sticks having the ap-
pearance Of having been used for clubs.
There were seven wounds on the head,
ranging from half an inch to an inch in
length. The skull was fractured in
four places. From the nature of the
wounds it hardly seems probable that
the woman could have hung herself af-
| terwards had she inflicted them. Her
wrists have the appearance of having
been grasped tightly. From the ap-
! pearance of the shed the woman had
walked to one end of the building and
then had walked or was carried back
about to the center of the shed, where
she was found hanging, as there are
blood stains all the way.