The Holbrook news., 1912-01-19
DEAD MAN IN A TREE
OFFICIALS 5AFFLED AT LATEST
 TURN IN STRANGE CASE.
Corpse Had Been Suspended In Ar Two Months-Supposed to Have Been Remains of Man Who
 Is Alive.


 Watertown, N. -Y.-Last July, one Sunday night, Harry Newton broke Jail here in a highly ingenious man. ner.
 Newton had been arrested a few weeks before, charged with robbing rooms at the Woodruff House during Masonic conclave. He was a stranger in these parts, and there was much evidence to show that he was a superior man in his line of business. The sheriff employed bloodhounds and spent many days trying to locate the smooth jailbreaker, but all in vain.
 A short time ago a startling dis covery was made, ten miles from town by farmers. It was the body of a dead man, suspended by its neck in a tree, on the back end of a farm re mote from any public highway.
 Coroner Smith and other officials hastened to the scene and promptly cut down the corpse. They were pug zled, of course, and because the dead man was apparently about the age of Newton, and because a bullet hole was found through the clothing of the corpse, and because the body had evil dently been placed in the tree within a short time after Newton escaped, 1t was unanimously decided that the de composed remains were those of New ton. Accordingly, without much ad- ditional ceremony, they were laid to rest in a potter's field.
 The matter, strange to say, was given no further thought till recently, when it was discovered that Newton was working in an electrical plant at Northeast, Pa He was apprehended there by the Watertown sheriff, who brought him back here, where he con fessed to robbing guests at the hotel, breaking jail, etc.
 The minute it was known that New ton was alive the officials began the work of solving the mystery of the man in the tree. No satisfactory so- lution has yet been reached, and pos sibly none ever will be.
 Coroner Smith states that the body hung twenty feet from the ground in one of the upper branches, the chin and head wedged firmly in a crotch. the neck stretched to twice its natural length by the weight of the body. There was no branches about capable of supporting climber. It was thus impossible that the man could have slipped from higher footing and tumbled into the trap, even were it feasible that a man would catch by his chin in such a way. The theory of suicide seems equally unsupport- able, for rope is too easily secured to tempt a man to hook himself on limb in the hope of breaking his neck or strangling to death.
 But granting the possibility of one of these theories, the cause of the sup posed bullet hole through the cloth ing of the unfortunate remains unac- counted for. At the time the officers believed that a shot fired by one of the deputies on the night of Newton's escape had found it's victim. The con dition of the corpse was such as to render it impossible to determine if a the marks which remained in the clothing convinced the police that the man had been wounded.
 No man, unaided, hung the corpse in the tree. This is not only self evi- dent, but is the opinion and belief of Coroner Smith, who assisted in the removal of the remains. At least two men were involved, he ayers. And they had their hands full," he con cluded.
 No papers or Identification marks were found in the clothing save an such as is used by railroads in paying of their help and bearing the number 261. This remains as the sole clew to the puzzle.