The Plymouth Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1878-1901, 1901-08-01
Actions of Woman at Kalamazoo
Indicate Rosnance.
Placing Of Flowers on River Bank Lead
to Discovery Of Body Apparently
Buried Many Years.

home at No. 1113 Seminary street
Monday evening, when he dug
up in his back yard the bones of
a mans skeleton. The manner
in which the disarranged skele-
ton came to be discovered lends
to it great air of mystery, and
has set the officers looking for a
strange little woman who has
been seen putting flowers over
the unknown grave.
Since Decoration day Mr.. and
Mrs. Brewer have noticed a
strange woman passing between
their house and the next, but
few feet away, but have thought
nothing of it. Her last visit was
made Sunday night, when Brow
er watched her out of curiosity,
saw her enter the yard with a
small package in her hand, stand
on the river bank back of the
house for a few minutes, and
then leave without the package.
He went tc the place in the morn
ing and found a small bouquet of
simple garden flowers set on the
crest Of the bank in a tin baking
powder can, and wondered what
it meant.
After puzzling over the matter
during the day he went to the
place, not forty feet from his
house, and began digging soon
after supper. Before he had dug
two feet he found portions of hu
man bones.
Coroner Verhage was notified
and this morning a number of
officers went to the spot aud
made further excavations. They
found portions of two thigh
bones, skull plates, parts of an
under and upper jaw, few scat
tering vertebrae, and other evil
dences that body had been
buried in the spot years ago. No
whole bones were found and
those discovered appeared rot.
ting with age and the action of
the soil.
Sexton Borland. of Riverside
cemetery, just across the road,
and others who have seen skele-
tons long in the ground, say that
the bones have been buried a
long time, probably thirty years.
There were no signs of flesh,
what was at first being taken for
a bit of flesh afterward proving
to be only a soft piece of bone
falling to pieces and growing
soft. There were no buttons or
indications of clothing, and not
single nail or trace of a coffin
or box.
All of the bones which could
be found were taken out this
morning, the hole in the sand
being dug to depth of several
feet, and then filled. There were
no bones more than two feet from
the surface, indicating a very
shallow burial. The theory was
advanced that the bones had
been removed from some other
spot, but that was answered by
the heavy growth of sod cover
ing the spot, which is about
thirty feet southeast of an old
section stone.
Officers spent the night with
Brewer watching for the myster-
ious old woman, but she did not
appear, and every effort to locate
her today has been in vain. 1t
is thought that if there is no
crime connected with the find
the woman, who seemed to love
the moldering bones, will appear
| to claim them when she knows
that they have been taken up
and left in a market basket in the
sheriff's office. If she does not
appear a determined search will
be made for her, and in any
event the matter will be probed
to the bottom.
The woman usually appeared
between II and IL o'clock at
night usually near midnight,
walking on the opposite side of
the street until near the Brewer
house. when she would cross and
sink between the houses. A
number of bouquets of flowers
have been found at the place,
but no attention was paid to