The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-07-25
CRATER's GRIM SECRET SOLVES
A MYSTERY.
Hornets Scattered Remains Discover
ed On the Anniversary of His Suicide
Love Dependency the Cause.

One year ago today, on Thursday
July 25, Ernest G. Hornet, a jeweler in
the employ of II. f. Wichman left his
home at Kaimuki, remarking to j. w.
A. Redhouse with whom he lived, that
he was going nowhere in particular.
Friday morning, his bed was found to
| be unoccupied 1t was thought for a
time that he had merely made trip in
to the mountains but as days passed
and the despondent nature of Horners
mind just prior to his disappearance
were commented upon, his friends be-
came more and more convinced that
Hornet had committed suicide threat
of which, he had often made when he
got to a place he could not see his
way out Of"
Two years before this. Hornets wife
had died in Vienna, ten weeks before his
house burned down. He was also un-
happy in his love affaires with a girl
of Mexican blood who lived at Moana-
| lua and from whom he had had an
estrangement through no fault of the
girl. This last affair was the cause of
| much dependency. He was not Grip
| Pied financially. He was rebuilding a
| house that had been burned and with
q friend of his Sergeant George H.
| Scott, of the 66th Company, Coast Ar
| tillery, had talked cheerfully over the
| prospects of going into business for
| nlIlSelI. ne kept on MS bureau at hal-
| muki a bottle of carbolic acid, another
| bottle containing liquid from which the
| label had been carefully scraped, and
! revolver, with which he had threatened
| to blow off his head if things heavy
| came to a pass over which he could not
! see his way.
Search was in vain and his friends
! believed him dead, despite rumors
| which discovered him in San Francis
! co. 1t was the undoubted belief of his
| immediate associates that he had COM
mitted suicide through dependency
connected with his fiancee Moanalua.
! She was young girl much attached
! to Hornet, who was considerably older
than she, and his friends had advised
| him not to marry her on account of
| the physical incompatability between
them. This made Hornet sad and the
| engagement was broken off, only to be
on again. The wedding was fixed and
the bridal dress actually being fitted in
| readiness for the ceremony which was
to have taken place the following week
when Hornet sought tFe solution of all
his doubts in the crater of the dead
| volcano.
Three weeks later Scott shot himself
with a Krag Jorgensen, first .burying
a violin that had been given him by
| Hornet. This violin had already fig
ured in two suicides, having previously
belonged to Kaufman, once bandmas-
ter of Dewey's flagship Olympia, awho
committed suicide early in the year
| Yesterday afternoon, one wear from
the date of the disappearance of Hor-
neg. sergeant Bales of the 9th Coast
Artillery found, while exploring the
crater of Diamond Heal for ancient
burial caves, a scattered skeleton, not
Of some Hawaiian chieftain, but of
much more modern date.
The remains were scattered over a
considerable radius under kiawe bush
es at the mauka end of the crater.
The discoverers noted some teeth FILL
ed with gold, some keys and other OBJ
iects that prompted them to notify the
police, and the High Sheriff and his
deputy rode out and brought in all the
evidence they could find in the shape
of scattered bones, the skull, a shoe,
collar and necktie, teeth, silk hand
kerchef, keys, a half pint flash and
a small tin box similar to those often
carried by working jewelers. and sent
out by the manufacturers of watch
making materials. Evidence offered by
Wichman and Merle Johnson of that
store practically identified the remains
as those of Hornet. the skull being of
unusual size. A hat and other cloth
, ing were left perforce at the crater,
|
1t is thought that Hornet took poi
son and lay down to die close to where
the remains We're found.
This morning Redhouse identified the
keys holding duplicates of them at his
house ard thus furnishing the last link
in the mystery of the fate of Hornet
At the time OF the disappearance
, Captain A. A. Fox of the Mounted
: Patrol. who lately succumbed to cho-
1aVsn In mil pa1nn n
| from Waikiki to Waialae and from
there on the search was taken up by
Wichmann, the employer of the lost
, man. No one sought the crater though
, his usual haunts were visited. Nothing
, points to the revolver being used and
it is thought that poison was the means
to the end employed by the despondent
man.
A A