Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1909-12-14
ASKS INDICTMENT
If SKELETON QUIZ
PROVES NEGLECT
Carelessness Allowing Inmates
Death Violation Of Law,
Judge Says.

Coincilent with the special meeting
of the Freeholders today at overbrook
Asylum to investigate the skeleton
mystery at the old asylum on South
Orange avenue, Chief Justice Gun1nlere
in his charge to the December grand
jury declared that the grand Jury
should indict anyone found guilty of
carelessness which would result in the
death OF an inmate of such an institu-
tion.
There were present at the meeting in
the asylum at Overbrook today super
visor Frederick L. Baldwin, Director
Wallace Ougheltree and Freeholders
Haskell, Ward. Anthem, Peck and Acc
herman. Freeholder Anthem assumed
the duties of Freeholder Gottlieb, Sec
retary of the board, who was absent.
A report of the expert accountant
who was employed to go over the books
at Overbrook showed that twenty
names in the census list prepared by
the doctors and nurses in the institu-
tion did not appear on the register book
and that twenty two names on the reg
lister did not appear in the census rec
ord. 1t was further discovered by the
expert that one inmate of the hospital
who died in July was recorded in the
census as still alive. 1t was necessary
to get the commitment papers to dis
cover which of the two women of the
same name in ward was dead. and
which had been discharged. The cen
sus was taken in November.
The freeholders were evidently much
disappointed at conditions in the Essex
County Hospital and one of them said
DIR. Daniel M. Dill. the superintendent,
should resign at once. The accountant
was told to ignore the census prepared
by the nurses and doctors and to pre-
para correct list
In going into the records further the
freeholders found that in the case of
one, patient admitted to the institution
the name of the physician signing the
commitment papers had been recorded,
instead of that of the patient.
Freeholder Haskell moved that the
meeting adjourn until next week, when
the accountant would be better able to
report on the condition of the records.
This motion was warmly opposed by
Freeholder Baldwin, who declared that
the members had assembled to en-
deavor to clear up the skeleton nys-
terry. He said that while DR.. Dill has
denied that the skeleton was that of
Mrs Lindner, he had information
which convinced him that it was.
T'reeholder Anthem said he upder-
stood that Freeholder Gottlieb had a.
card showing the transfer of Mrs. Lind
ner from one ward to another Dlrec-
tor Ougheltree said a young woman
had written him a letter asking per-
mission to go through the hospital in
search of her mother, who had been
missing three years, and who, she be-
leved, was a patient. at Overbrook.
A motion granting the necessary per-
mission was passed.
The judges charge in the skeleton
case follows:
"The first case to which the court de-
sires TO direct your attention specifically
relates to the finding of a dead body of
a woman in the old Essex County Asy-
lum 1t appears that on the eighteenth
of last month parties who were in the
loft of that building discovered the
skelton of woman. the flesh having
been almost entirely removed, from the
bone. Evidences of fire We're found, al
most in the place where the body lay,
How long it had been there was impos-
sible to say, except that it must have
apparently come to that place after 1894.
for at that time the building was cleo
trically wired and some of the wiring
was within three or four feet of the
body. 1t is impossible that the wiring
was laid there without the body being
discovered.
''Your predecessors made some in
auiries, but the time was too short to
allow them to reach any conclusion.
therefore request you to take UP the
investigation again, beginning at the
beginning. 1t may be impossible, and II
certainly may oe difficult to determine
who the person Is that has been so long
dead. The presumption would be, ii
seems to me. that the skeleton is
that of an inmate OF the institu-
tion. The records of the institu-
zt -----a n y. 81.
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