The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1905-05-23
STRANGE STORY
Told by Woman Who
Said She EIoped
With KepIer
WHO KILLED HIMSELF

New York, May 1S.-Mrs. Dona e.
Miller, who declares she eloped with
Herbert l.. Kepler, found dead from
a morphine overdose today, was com.
mitted this afternoon by Coroner
Schoeler to the house of detention.
She declared that she had been there
before as a witness in the case of
Harper Young, q grandson of Brig
lam Young, former Mormon church
head and that she had introduced 70
Hooper Young the woman whom he
murdered.
1t was reported at the time Of the
trial that Young had asked a woman
hamed Dona E. Miller to his apart.
ment shortly before the murder, but
that she had refused to go with
him
Kepler was a former tennis cham.
pion of the south and was found dead
today in a room in Sueseus' Hotel,
No. 100 West Flfty-sixth street. He
lad eloped two weeks ago with the
Miller woman from Deland, Fla.
Mrs. Miller told the coroner that
she has little daughter in Califor-
MIA but does not know the where
abouts of Miller, her husband, with
whom she has not lived for three or
four years.
please do not send me to the
house of detention" she pleaded.
you will be all right there-just
as we'll off as you would be in ho-
TEL" replied the coroner.
"Oh. no, know better. was once
confined there before and know what
a miserable place it is, 1 am sick and
ought to go to a hospital and not to
the house of detention"
when were you there before?"
ooh, three or four weeks ago.
was a witness in the case of Hooper
Young, who committed a murder.
lived in the same house with the
murdered woman and it was | who
introduced her to Young"
While she was waiting for the COM
lnitment papers to be made out, Mrs.
Miller told Coroner Scholer that the
reason Kepler committed suicide was
because he feared Florida retribu.
tive justice.
"He forged his fathers name to
eight or ten checks" she said. These
checks were cashed by the Voturia
County bank of Deland. Fla. He told
me that if convicted he would have
10 work in the convict gang of mig
gers and cut throats,' chopping wood
in the forests of Florida, and before
he did that he would commit sui
eide"
Mrs. Miller also said that Kepler
left letter of six lines addressed to
his father and mother begging that
she and he might not be separated in
death and that his parents and daugh-
ter would forgive him.
In view of this letter the police
believe that Kepler intended to kill
both himself and the woman.
Mrs. Miller, according to Assistant
District Attorney Charles H. Studin,
had told him that Young had ap.
preached her upon the night when
Mrs. Pulitzer had gone to his apart
ment, never to be seen alive again
end invited her to visit him.
His manner was so strong that she
had refused. She declared that had
she accepted mis- invitation she be.
lieved her body would, instead of that
Of Mrs. Pulitzer, have been found In
the Hackensack marshes.
Through his nephew, John Ray.
mond, cashier of the Cadillac Hotel,
It was learned that Kepler had once
been prominent among the tennis
players of the country. The two had
played in doubles. in the south, he
ssld' and won many victories. When
ne won the southern championship,
which he held for some time. he de.
feated Roderick V. Beach, of New
Haven, Beach, by odd coincidence. IL
transpires, himself met a violent
death