The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-21
REFUGE IN DEATH
PROMINENT CHICAGO
DENTIST
THE WOMAN FOUND DEAD
DIR. Orville Burnette and Mrs. Char
Iotte Nichoi Resolve to Die
Together After Living
Dual Lives.

CHICAGO, Oct. 20. = While grieving
over the dual life she was lead
ing with DR.. Orville Burnette, a promf-
nent Chicago dentist, Mrs. Charlotte
Nichol, wife of w. L. Nichol Jr., the
commercial agent of the Nashville, Chat
tanooga & Louisville railroad, committed
suicide today. Burnette also tried to end
his life at the same time, but was un-
successful.
The two were found in their rooms,
both stretched across the bed, the wom-
an dead. and Burnette with his neck
pierced with a hat pin, bottle of NOR
phine clutched in his hand and the gas
turned on from every one of the six
jets in the suite. DR.. Burnette is still
alive and has been arrested.
In one Of the rooms was found a note
written the woman, which told of her
reason for the act. She said:
BECAUSE OF LOVE.
ITO whom it may concern: I did it
because 1 loved him better than any
thing on earth, and he loved me, and we
could not be separated. Good-by. Char
lotte''
The note, supplemented with a state
ment made by DR.. Burnette, tells of the
tragedy enacted by the two lovers. Ac-
cording to the dentists story he met
Mrs. Nichol while yet young girl in
Nashville, Tenn, and fell in love with
her. Burnette moved to Chicago and
married several years afterward.
"Our love was still strong for each
other, said Burnette, .and she moved
to Chicago to be near me. We were to-
gether nearly every day. There seemed,
however, to be constant remorse on
her part on account of the dual life she
was leading. Saturday we went down
town together, and after having several
drinks she proposed suicide to me and
we went to the Marlborough hotel and
she produced bottle of morphine she
/ had hidden in her dress.
RESOLVED TO DIE.
eShe again asked me to die with her
and 1 consented. Then she swallowed
nearly all the contents of the bottle and
handed it to me. 1 drank what she left
but, believing that 1 had not taken
enough to prove fatal, I tried to end
by life by sticking the hat pin into my
neck 1 saw this was also going to be
a failure, so I turned all the gas on and
laid down to die
Burnette stated that his wife knew
nothing of his attachment for Mrs
Nichol.
A policeman who was sent to the
Nichol home, at 651S Minerva avenue,
tonight to notify Mr.. Nichol of the
tragedy, found no one there but the
two little children OF the dead woman,
one a boy of eight and the other a little
girl of four. years They told the police
man that their father was out looking
for their mother who had been missing
all last night and today
NOT KNOWN IN NASHVILLE.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. Oct 2O.-Nothing
is known here of DR.. Burnette connected
with the suicide of Mrs. w. L. Nichol
Jr. at Chicago. Mrs Nichol was
daughter of DR.. F. A. Shoup, connected
with the University of the South at Sc
vance, Tenn, and before her marriage
was popular socially both there and in
Nashville, where she spent part of her
time.
w. L. Nichol Jr is the son of the late
DR.. w. L. Nichol, of Nashville, one OF
the South's most prominent physicians
He is at present commercial agent at
Chicago for the Nashville, Chattanooga
& ST. Louis railway, but had recently
been promoted and was to return to
Nashville at an early date to assume
the duties of commercial agent at the
company's headquarters here