Los Angeles herald., 1908-01-25
LOCAL MAN
is MURDERED
IN MEXICO
FAMILY RECEIVES WORD OF
MINERS DEATH
is SLAIN BY BROTHER OF CHI
HuAHuA BEAUTY
Wife Believes Husband Was Killed by
Natives Jealous of His Prosperity.
Only Meaaer Particulars
Received

Dispatches received in Los Angeles
last night tell Of the murder in Urique'
Mexico, of Otto N. Roeder, a well-to-do
German miner of this city, whose fam
sly lives at Central avenue and Adams
street.
Meager part culars of the murder
were dispatched through the Associated
Press from Chihuahua, to the erect
that Mexican girl was also murdered
Of the same time. and that the t"o
crimes we're committed by brother OF
the girl who had objected to ner leaV-
ing home with Roeder No other par
ticulars of the double tragedy were re-
ceived.
INQUIRY here revealed that the muir
dered man was once well known IN Los
Angeles. He has a widow, two sons
and a daughter here, and the latter is
well known locally by the stage name
Of ''Viola Mayfair" She is at present
playing at the Lyric theater, Los Anse-
les.
A son of the murdered man said last
night that his father had been general
overseer in Mexico of extensive prop
critics owned there by Los Angeles min
ing men but he did not know the name
tf the company he represented. In ad-
dition t., his work in this capacity, the
murdered mar was also an extensive
miner in his own interests, and at the
time of his death was well off. He hao
recently sold q number of claims III
Mexico for a considerable sum.
BIames Jealous Mexicans
The insane but groundless jealousy of
a numbl1 of Mexicans, who urged the
brother Of the girl to commit the crime,
.s believed by the family to have led
up to the tragedy.
The family has implicit confidence IN
the character of the murdered man, and
stoutly maintained that his relations
with the girl were strictly those of an
employer.
The girl was hired two years ago as
a cook, and is said to have been very
pretty type of Chihuahuan. She was
about 10 years old.
JJrioue, near where the murders were
committed, is small adobe settlement
in the wilds OF the Sierra Madre noun
tains, in Northern Chihuahua. 1t is
barren, desolate country except in rare
spots, where the vegetation is unusual
ly profuse.
In one of these rare spots, high up IN
the mountains, Roeder decided to make
lis home until he had accumulated
fortune. He accordingly erected what
the son declares was one of the most
comfortable and modern dwellings IN
the state OF Chihuahua.
Mrs. Roeder, who is now in Los An
seles, visited her husband last year
and left him in the best of spirits.
There were then no indications of ami
mostly on the part of any of the Mexi-
rans, and letters received from him as
late as last october gave no hint OF
possible trouble.
That Roeder may have been muir
dered for his money is also advanced
Jy the family as a possible motive, al
though in their bewilderment at the
sad news many solutions of the trage-
dy are suggested.
Girls IN Chihuahua are said to be
rarily, especially in that isolated re-
sion, and jealousies indirectly arising
from Poeders nationality doubtless
were the rea. cause of the murders.
americans have never been popular
there; and however prosperous he may
be in the rurai regions of Chihuahua,
he is never safe from ambushed enc
mics.