The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1901-11-15
PLOT THICKENS.
Mystery Regarding KaWeII Fire
Grows Deeper.
Three More Letters of a Threatening
Nature Are Found Officials
Working on the Case.

The mystery regarding the burning
of Mrs. Kawell's house grows deeper,
and the officials are more at seaMonday
in regard to the culprit than at any
time heretofore.
Three more letters have been found
by those interested, and are in the
same handwriting as the first three,
and are filled with threats and vituper
alton, Two of them are mere notes,
while the third is longer
One of the short notes, when trans
lated from the German, reads as fol-
lows:
"That Liebernech must 90 to Still
water for life. He burned that Gabel's
house. His house will also be burned,
the -, if he don't let that girl
alone
Where the blank space is left in the
note, an insulting word appears. The
person spoken of as Liebernech is VIM.
Iceberg, who has been waiting on
Mrs. Kawell's oldest daughter. The
second note is similar to this, and the
long letters consist almost entirely of
abuse of Mr.. Iceberg and questionings
as to why he is allowed to visit Mrs.
Kawell's house and call on her daugh-
ter. The writer is evidently a person
who is very anxious to prevent Mr..
Iceberg and Miss Kawell from associ
ating together. 1t is also evident that
the person who has written the letters
is the party who burned Mrs. Kawell' s
house, and who now seeks to make it
appear that Mr.. Iceberg set the fire.
Of course, nobody is deceived by that.
The note published above was found
this morning tackled to telephone
pole on the Eagle Lake road near Mr..
Torner's house. Mr.. former is Lie
bergs step father and Iceberg resides
there, which makes it appear that the
writer wanted to terrify him.
Members of the former family at ten
o'clock last night heard sound like
that of driving tacks into the tele-
phone pole. Their dog barked just
then and they opened the door. They
heard the words, ooh, mamma" ut
tered near the telephone pole. They
paid no more attention to the matter
at the time. The superstition is that a
woman tackled the note to the tele-
phone pole, and that her child was
frightened by the barking of the dog.
The note, like the other letters, ap-
pears to be in woman g handwriting.
The other short note was found at
80 o'clock this morning by one of
Mrs. Kawell's boys. 1t was tackled on
an elm tree on the Chas Graf road =, :
far from the ruins of the burned he a.:
1t is believed that it was there last
evening, as parties saw what seemed
to be a piece of paper on the tree, but
gave the matter no further thought
then.
The last three letters or notes have
been placed in the hands of Sheriff
Gerlich, who is now working on the
case. He was on the ground this
morning and went out again this after
noon.
The case seems to be more mixed up
now than at any previous time, and
the officials are working in the dark.
The more the matter is looked into,
the less evidence there is against par
ties at first suspected. The officers have
secured samples of handwriting of sew
eral women who live in the neighbor-
hood, but while some think there is a
resemblance between one or two o f
these and the anonymous letters,
others do not
Mr.. Iceberg is unable to throw any
light on the subject, as he does not
know whom to suspect. The same is
true of the Kawell family.
While the motive of the writer OF
the letters seems to be to separate
| Iceberg and Miss Kawell, how the
burning of Mrs. Kawell's house was
expected to accomplish this is not
known. This leads to the belief that
whoever committed the deed is suffer
ing from disordered mind. 1t is I'M
certain whether the party is friend
of Mr.. Iceberg or of the young lady,
| although the contents of the letters
would make the latter appear to be
the case. Yet it might be the plr-