Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1910-07-28
IN GRIP OF CHAINS
PAIR ATTEMPT SUICIDE
Are Rescued When Nearly
Dead.

A1'1A91 july -'--b0uuQ together
with two steel chains and Is feet If
inch rope and weighted with a valise
filled with sand. Brice Wommack -
years old, OF Troy, No. father OF five
children and one Of the wealthfest men
OF Lincoln county, and Mrs. Mouia
Anderson jumped from a skfff into thu
Mississippi river at the Grain Of
Rocks shortly after dawn this morn
ing. Through the bravery Of James
Landers, City employe at the intake
tower they were rescued.
Wommack IS held at the mounted
police station charged with theft Of
the skiff from which he ana the W..
man leaDed to what they intended 10
be death. Mrs. Anderson is in the o.
servaJi'n ward at the city Eospita;.
Il IS feared that the nervous shock
has unbalanced her reason.
The near tragedy was the result Of
a suicide pact. Every detail of their
plan to kill themselves and hide their
bodies and all evidences of their fate
at the bottom of the Mississippi b,a
been carefully gone over before they
left ST. Louis.
Thursday night the couple took a
train t. Lower Alton from whence
they walked back a mile along the rafi-
road track. There they camped with
out shelter and practically without
food until this morning.
Built IN Ark OF Death.
Friday morning they began the con
structton Of a raft upon which they
intended to float 10 water Of sufficient
depth to drown them and cover all
traces Of the double tragedy. Yeste,-
/ day morning they finished the raf,.
which they left IN skids ready to push
into the river while they returned 70
their camp for weights and chains for
their bodies. When they returned to
/ the raft il had slipped from ire skids
and hoated away. At the landing near
which Trey We're camped they found a
skiff and in this they showed off. Abont
half mile north of the intake tower
they found the depth Of water they
wanted.
/ Standing in their boat the woman
wound one end Of 15-f0Ot rope aboat
her body under the arms. and Wom-
mack did the same. Two steel dog
chains with clasps they wound several
times around both and cIasped Them
{ geJler On the rope and chain they
hung and tied the vaIise full Of SAM.
/ Wommack's pockets had been filed
with sand, and they We're certain they
would sink. As they rocked in the
swaying boat Wommack made fast the
last chain and Mrs. Anderson leaned
back and both topDIed into the watas.
Woman Changed Mind About Dying.
After sinking twice beneath the Mis-
sissippi's windswept waters. Mrs. An
derson hastily reversed her decision
that death with Wommack was better
than life without him. She cried for
help and grasped a rowIock of the
boat. While he supported the woman
to whom he was bound with one arm
and chung to the drifting boat with
the other, Wommack attempted to a.
que the woman into a consumma-i9n Of
their attempt at suicide.
Not until choked and half drowned
would the Anderson woman promise TO
leave him free to return to his wife
and five children on his home farm
near Troy. Then Wommack, who is a
/ god swimmer, began mis- attempt to
save her life, as wei as his own.
Death was better than the way We
had been" Wommack said Il would
have dropped off in a second if she
hadn't said she would leave me"
Crying for help they drifted past thu
intake tower, and Landers heard the
cries. As he approached them they
were in an eddy and it was only b.
endangering his own boat that he man
aged to reach them and drag them
/ ashore.