The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-03-08
SUSPECT MURDER
IN GIRLS DEATH
NEAR RICHMOND
Police Reveal Peculiar Story
Held Secret for Three
Months-Parents Escape.

The story of the death Of Alma
Marie Brown, 19 years old, which oc-
CURED about the middle OF Novem-
ber in cabin near Reeds Springs,
north of Richmond, under circum-
stances that might have justified an
indictment for murder, was told for
the first time Saturday morning.
The Brown case has been concealed
from the public until now, because
while Frank Brown, the girls sup
posed father and the fathers COM
panion, an elderly woman who would
have been arrested for the murder of
the girl were suspected, they left the
neighborhood before anything tangible
had been developed against them. The
police have been looking for them.
Coroner S. Edgar Bond, not salts
fed in the belief that the girl had died
natural death, sent her liver, heart,
stomach and other organs to Indi-
annapolis for investigation. Traces Of
arsenic were discovered in the stom-
ach and the liver showed that there
had been long-continued septic poison
ing, either from some sort of drug
arsenic or antimony-or from malarial
trouble of long standing.
The Brown family, the two older
people and the girl, came to Rich
mond from the hill districts Of Ken
lucky, some time last fall. They were
desperately poor, and lived at first in
a mere hole in the ground near Reid
Memorial hospital. Later the man
was employed to cut wood, and was
given the privilege Of living in a
shack there.
1t was known to neighbors that the
elder woman was fiercely jealous of
the girl and had threatened to kill
her. The girl first became i'll during
the fall and recovered from that ILL
ness.
In November the girl became Ill
again, was treated by a Richmond
doctor, who gave her tonic and some
other medicines, and finally died. The
body was brought to Richmond un-
dertaker's, but he refused to bury the
girl without cause being given for
her death.
Suspicious symptoms were found In
the girls liver which caused the cor
oner TO have the Indianapolis exam
ination made.
suspicious and left between two days
while the body was undergoing inves-
tigation at Indianapolis. No trace Of
them has been found. The girl was
buried in Ohio.
Coroners Statement
Coroner Bonds statement follows:
"The coroner found two possible
sources of cause for the girls death.
First septic Infection; second, signs
of systemic poisoning as from a drug
continued over a considerable period.
The first has been officially establish
ed as a fact. The second is worthy
of a thorough investigation by the
grand jury of Wayne county as to its
source. And both Frank Brown and
wife, Ida Brown, should be held as
responsible for her death.
THE adhered liver, general nausea,
spells of dizziness, fainting, together
with pallor, should lend a suspicion
of having taken over considerable
period some active poisonous agent,
probably arsenic.
"The testimony of an expert, Dr.
Moon, indicates drug or poison agent
over considerable period, was given
The girl would scarcely have taken
any agent knowing that would kill
except all at once, as suicide.
IF true, it was administered with
malicious intent by someone in the
home"