The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-12
Work of UnraVe|ing Mysteries
 Is Somewhat Delayed
EVIDENCES OF STRUGGLE
Body of Andrew HelgeIein :S That He Fought FierceIy Fe GS. Life Before Death Was &o.ted
 By Mrs. Gu O.

La Porte, Ind, May 11.-Mrs. Belle Gunness' farm failed to reveal new mys- teries, but progress was made toward solving the puzzles already involved in the homestead, which has witnessed the tragic deaths of at least IA persons. Heavy showers today made excavating impossible, but between the dowppours Sheriff Smutzer and Louis Schultz worked on the apparatus with which Schultz is to sluice the ashes in the cellar of the Gunness house that burned on April 2S. bricks were cleared from the south half of the basement, and it is thought that the mining operations will start in earnest tomorrow. This operation is to be carried on to find evidence bearing on the iden- tity of the woman's body found in the debris of the burned house and supposed to be that of Mrs. Gunness. pr. J. w. William Meyer sent to the coroner his finding from the autopsies on the bodies supposed to be those of Andrew Helge- lein of Mansfield S. D.. and Jennie Olsen, the foster daughter of Mrs Guinness, who disappeared in 1906 Dr. Meyer reported that mass of hair had been found in the clenched fist of Helgelen and that the fingers grasping it had been severed above the first phalanx.
 Ralph N. Smith, the prosecuting attor- ney, today denied the interview credited to him, in which he is credited to have said a gold band ring in the possession of the prosecution was found on a finger of the left hand of the charred corpse said to be that of Mrs. Guinness.
 Miss Carrie Garwood, who taught the school attended by the Guinness children, denied the story that on the morning preceding the fire at the Gunness home the three Gunness children had come to school crying, complaining that their mother had beaten them because they had started to enter the cellar of their home. The testimony was taken to indi- cate that Mrs. Guinness had placed ca daver in the cellar long before the fire was started.
 Dr. Meyers report on the bodies of Helgelein and Miss Olsen declared that both had met unnatural deaths. In the case of the young woman, the condition of the corpse precluded any possibility of determining the manner in which she was murdered. Decay caused largely by lime had destroyed the tissues so that the organs are scarcely susceptible to chemical an- alysis and there is not enough flesh left to show evidence of wounds. The crumbling skull revealed none. Helgeleins body had been in the ground only a few months at most and it gave evidence of death strug- gle. The clenched hand which con- tained hair, had been mutilated and the other hand had been severed at the wrist. Of this body the official report says:
 "F'rom the findings it is evident that the man died an unnatural death, but at whose hands or how, cannot be de- termined by the examination so far The hair in the hand is likely from the head of his murderer or the stomach may show what poison, if any, killed him."
 Dr. Meyer, in commenting on this statement, said:
 Tt would have perhaps been more accurate if I had said from the pois ,n of his murderer instead of from the head. The hair 4s sh ort and of a red dish brown tinge and was found mat ted between the first and second fn- gers of the hand, the bulk of it being in the upper part of the palm"