Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1909-09-28
ALL EVIDENCE
INDICATES SUICIDE
Gertrude Montgo-
merry Was Home
sick
CAREFULLY PREMEDITATED
Unfortunate School Teacher
Ended Life on Top of
Hill.

Gertrude Montgomery committed
suicide The authorities seem to have
10 doubt about it. The finding OF
the revolver with which she commit
ted the deed cleared away the mystery
and her movements have been traced
definitely from Monday afternoon I'M
til she was found early Sunday morn
ing.
Iii and respondent, she left her
rooms at the Kennedy house. She
paid her board bill to Mrs. A. Call
and said: If | get letter at the
postofFice, you will not see me again"
She packed her clothes carefully and
on top of her clothes in the trunk laid
the address of her mother. In a
bureau drawer she laid on a blue silk
ribbon the rent she still owed so that
it might be easily found. She was
neat and tidy little body, she had
an abundance of beautiful clothes,
but she put on the poorest she had,
an old blue skirt and over it rain
coat. She took out her pearl handle,
nickel revolver, 80 caliber, but small
ladies' affair, and went to the post
office. From there she went up the
Canon road, to a high knoll on top
of which she sat down. She took Off
her hat and carefully put long pin
through it. She laid by her side her
satchel containing $1.35 in change,
which besides the Sc sewed in the
bosom of her dress, was all the money
she had not enough to pay her fare
to Bent, Otero county, at which place
she had been offered position and
which she would have taken, although
reluctantly, because the salary offered
was only $50 month and the school
term short. She had told Mrs. Con-
way that she was sick; she had let
others know that she was homesick
and despondent. To her poor, tired,
puzzled brain, there was only one es-
cape-death.
She undoubtedly sat long and pom
dered; no doubt she repeatedly lifted
the revolver to her temple and then
dropped it again. Finally, with trem'
bling hands, she fired the shot, which
struck in back of her head, in part
fractured the skull and then ranged
down to the left ear. She dropped I'M
conscious and the blood oozed out in
big pool. After a long sleep, it
must have been many hours, she
of hnr ct, cI1ff ri
to try to get away, anywhere, natural
" along the path of least resistance.
She crawled, slid and rolled down
sixty feet, over jagged stones, through
rubble. over cacti and brush, which
bruised and scratched her elbows and
knees, her limbs, her body-doWn in
to the canon where the sound of wa
ter drew her to quench her burning
thirst and cool her throbbing brows.
There she was found dazed, dying.
The revolver was by her side and was
picked up by those who had found
her but who had failed to tell the of
ficers until last evening of their find.
The hat and satchel were lying near
and shot herself. Her tracks, and
ner tracks alone, are plentiful in the
same vicinity and can be easily traced
where she walked up and down in
despair No other tracks are near
anywhere. The long lane her body
made in rolling down the hill is plain
ly visible. No murderer would have
taken her up to the hill and complete
ly obliterated his tracks; no murderer
would have rolled her down into the
to the blind gully nearby where her
remains would not have been found
until judgment day for there is no
inlet or exit to it and one can go to
the bottom of it except by rope.
Neither her outward clothing nor
her underclothing were torn open;
there were no marks that would be
inflicted on such parts of the body as
would most likely be injured in a
struggle, the bruises and scratches are
in places and are such as would be
caused by first trying to slide down
the hill while seated and then rolling
down unconscious.
The conflicting stories of the three
TRUSTEES arrested on suspicion have
been reconciled The men had been
in town on Tuesday. They had taken
Il bath and changed their clothing at
the penitentiary and then started back
to the shack in the canon. Paz Otero
Chayes expected to meet his COM
panions at the Canon street bridge, but
they did not come and he returned
alone to the shack. The other two, OBJ
tained liquor in town and became