Sunday, September 13, 2009

Missouri Murderer Suicides to Escape Lynching (1901)

The following was published in a newspaper in Aberdeen, South Dakota September 26, 1901

Bullet Through His Heart. Missouri Murderer Suicides to Escape Lynching.

Kansas City, Sept. 26.--A special to The Times from Rolla, Mo., says:

Surrounded in a barn, but a few blocks from the scene of his crime, Professor J. S. Croswell, who Monday night murdered his sweetheart, Miss Mollie Powell, a prominent young woman of this city, at 11:15 p.m. sent a bullet through his own heart to prevent being lynched by an angry posse.

Ever since the tragedy at the Powell home Monday evening, Croswell had been hiding from a large posse of citizens and college students that ransacked buildings and searched almost every spot in the city.

Croswell was located in a barn near the center of the town, where he had been hiding probably ever since his flight from the Powell home. When discovered he ran to another barn near by and here the posse bayed him.

Just as the attack was to be made the report of a pistol was heard inside the building and when the pursuers broke in they found the murderer prone upon the floor. A bullet had pierced his heart and death was instantaneous.

No comments:

Post a Comment