Jackson County, Missouri Genealogy Trails

Newspaper Articles

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An Old Woman's Dread of the Poorhouse Drives Her to Suicide

Kansas City, Missouri, September 3. - Late this afternoon the sexton of Elinwood Cemetery discovered the body of an aged woman, writhing in agony upon the grave of the Late John S. Brown. An empty two ounce vial labeled "laudanum" was found by her side.
The woman was the widow of John S. Brown, and she had attempted to commit suicide over the grave of her dead husband. She was poor and despondent and dreaded spending her last days in the poor house.
Two similar cases of suicide have occurred in the same cemetery, one being that of the police captain, Ditsch, and the other that of Mrs. John Murphy.

Times Picayune - September 4, 1890
Transcribed and contributed by: Frances Cooley

Miss Fannie Lyon is a notary public at Kansas City, and doing a good business.
The Quincy Whig, Saturday, June 26, 1869, Page1, [transcribed by Debbie Gibson]

KANSAS CITY. Mo., July 7
Gus Hyatt, alias George Hall, who was arrested here Saturday and yesterday confessed to having been one of the gang of train robbers who held, up the Louisville & Nashville passenger train near Caleira. Ala., three months ago. was placed in the "sweat box'' to-day and confessed to other crimes. Hyatt says that while resisting arrest at Dekoven, Ky.. April 15 last, he shot and killed a man named Green, who had first shot him in the arm. Hyatt bears a wound in his arm.
He says be helped rob the Southern Express Company at Clarksville, Tenn., June 23, when he got $1,220, and that he was in the train robbery at Belleville, Ill. about a year ago. In the latter robbery he claims to have received $900 as his part of the booty. Hyatt says his home is in Sandoval, III. where he has worked In the coal mines. He was taken to Memphis to-night without requisition papers.
News Of the Week Current Events (News Article) Date: 1897-07-14; Paper: Indiana State Journal [submitted by Barb Z. - 2009]

KANSAS CITY, Mo, July 6
George Hall, a young man arrested Sunday by Detective McAnany in a Turkish bath room on Main street, has seen identified as one of the train robbers who one night three months ago held up the Louisville & Nashville passenger train near Colera. Ala., and robbed The Southern Express Company of $3,000. Chief Vallins. when appointed to the head of the police department was working on the express robbery and had a perfect description of Hall and another of the robbers. Hall has a dark scar near the point of his chin, and when Detective McAnany led the man Into the chief's office Vallins readily identified him. Hall will be held here until an officer can be sent for him. A reward of $300 is offered for his capture
News Of the Week Current Events (News Article) Date: 1897-07-14; Paper: Indiana State Journal [submitted by Barb Z. - 2009]

- Charles Ward, at KS City Monday pleaded guilty of highway robbery and was given 10 years at hard labor.
Quincy Daily Herald #9, April 12, 1888 [C. Horton -2008]

- Wm. Moganstein, who tried to commit suicide Sunday at KS City by jumping into the Kansas River, made a confession to the effect that he was a defaulter to the Vienna House for 26,000 dollars.
Quincy Daily Herald #9, April 12, 1888 [C. Horton -2008]

- THE MURDER OF ATTORNEY JOHNSTON
Kansas City, Mo., July 22 – A coroner's jury in Kansas City, Kan., gave a verdict recommending that Banker A. W. Little be held for murder in the first degree for killing Attorney B. F. Johnston, on Minnesota street, within sight and hearing of hundreds of people. Public sentiment is greatly wrought up over the tragedy and muttered threats of lynching are still heard.
Transcribed from The Quincy Morning Whig, July 23, 1893 [Debbie Lee -2008]

CRIME TAKES FOUR LIVES
Grewsome Murder Is Unearthed on Farm Near Martin City, Mo.

AGED WOMAN KILLED
Her Body and Those of Son and Two Men Are Found

Kansas City, Mo., Dec. 10 – The bodies of Mrs. Emeline Bernhard, 75 years old, her son George, 40 years old, a trapper named Morgan and a Glenn Cotner, a hired man, were found on the Bernhard farm, at Martin City, 15 miles south of here, late today. All had been beaten to death. The four persons were last seen alive Wednesday by their neighbors. Suspicion was first excited when the rural mail carrier noticed the mail was not removed from the Bernhard box. He notified neighbors and this afternoon a number of them visited the farm and searched the premises.

             In the barn the bodies of the three men were found in a manger covered with hay. Their heads were badly crushed. All had evidently been dead two or three days. In a closet on the second floor of the house the body of Mrs. Bernhard was found. Her skull had been crushed.

             From the condition in which Mrs. Bernhard’s body was lying, it is believed by the officers that she was in the barn at the time of the assault, and after being beaten about the head, ran to the house, and going upstairs hid in a closet where she died.

             The sheriff of Johnson county Kansas, who went to the scene of the crime, is working on the theory that the murder was committed by a former hired hand with whom the owners are known to have had trouble over money. Mrs. Bernhard is said to have been wealthy, and, according to her neighbors, has often had trouble with men who worked for her because of quarrels over money.

             It would be difficult to imagine more propitious conditions under which a man might commit murder and conceal his crime than those which existed at the Bernhard farm. It is three and one-half miles from Dallas, Mo., a hamlet of about fifty people. The roads to the town are poor and traveled infrequently.

Led Peculiar Lives

             Besides these natural conditions, the peculiar lives led by the Bernhards made covering the crime easier. They had little to do with their neighbors. Many times for weeks they would have no callers at their residence. When they wanted a hired hand they would send to an employment agency and obtain one. Arriving at the farm, the employe would be warned against associating with neighbors.

             “We want men who will tend to their own business,” Mrs. Bernhard is said to have often told her help on the farm.

             Mrs. Bernhard woman and knew the value of money. She placed little trust in banks, she told her few intimate friends. It was her custom a few years ago to hide her money in the ash pan of a kitchen range. There was no cash there tonight.

             The domestic life of the Bernhards had been stormy. A few years ago, following a disagreement, Mrs. Bernhard’s husband left home. He returned after a lengthy absence and died on the home place. The farm consists of 120 acres of the best land in Johnson county.

             Officers late tonight discovered a clue that they hope will be of some assistance to them. The door leading to the closet in which Mrs. Bernhard’s body was found showed bloody finger prints. They were broad and distinct, appearing to have been made by a man’s hand.
(Source: The Oklahoman 12/11/1910. Contributed by Dale Donlon)

Kansas City, Mo.
Lewis’ Large Deposits
Put $30,000 in the Bank in a Year on a Salary of $1,200.
Kansas City, Mo. – Dec. 26 – The most startling testimony brought out by the prosecution today in the trial for forgery of Montgomery H. Lewis, formerly an employee of the Lombard Investment Company was that between October 1, 1890 and November 2, 1891, Lewis had deposited $31,351.29.
(Contributed by Peggy Thompson)

Kansas City Star, Friday, December 1, 1939:

WAIT ON BRUCE INQUEST
------
Prosecutor to decide then on car death action.
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Mrs. Ruby Belshe, driver in the fatal accident last night, posts bond pending Coroner's Inquiry.

Mrs. Ruby Belshe, 45 years old, 2618 East Seventy-Third Street, was free on $1,000 coroner's bond today pending an inquest at 9:30 o'clock December 12 into the motor car death of Mrs. Hazel Bruce, 50 years old, 3119 Charlotte Street.

Enos Axtell, an assistant prosecuting attorney, interviewed Mrs. Belshe this morning and looked over police reports on the accident last night in which Mrs. Belshe's car killed Mrs. Bruce. He said the prosecutor's office would decide after the inquest what action it will take.

Mrs. Belshe's 20 year old daughter, Miss Betty Jane Belshe, an art student, who was riding with her mother when the car struck Mrs. Bruce, accompanied Mrs. Belshe today, as did her lawyer.

Mrs. Belshe told police she "deeply regretted the accident," but that she felt it was unavoidable.

She said that Mrs. Bruce was crossing Sixty-Third Street diagonally at Harrison Street when she was struck. Mrs. Bruce died a few hours later in the General Hospital.

Besides her husband, Mrs. Bruce leaves four sons, William L. Bruce, Jr, Aaron Paul Bruce and Amos W. Bruce of the home, and Hubert A. Bruce, 2720 Tracy Avenue; two daughters, Miss Marjorie Bruce and Miss Lois Bruce, both of the home; her mother, Mrs. Josephine McFerrin, Blairstown, Mo.; two brothers, Robert McFerrin, Blairstown, and James M. McFerrin, 5322 Park Avenue; and two sisters, Mrs. Lillian Hodges, 4910 Bell Street, and Mrs. Pearl Counts, Quick City, Mo."
________________________

Addendum: Hazel Irene (McFerrin) Bruce was the daughter of J.A.J. and Josephine (Satterwhite) McFerrin, and was born 27 Nov 1888 in Missouri, dying on 30 Nov 1939, age 51. Hazel married William Lloyd "Pete" Bruce.

submitted by Janet (Bruce) Nelson

Jackson Co
Kansas City, Missouri
Norse Declares Slaying Was An Act Of Charity
Woman Who Killed K. C. Man and Wounded Self Wants To Die
Deserved to Be Shot
‘Not Sorry,’ Says Prisoner in Hospital After Fatal Assault in Hotel
Boasted Of Love Affairs
Promised to Marry Miss Beal; Then Told Her He Might Marry Another
Kansas City, Mo., June 4 – “No I’m not sorry. I’m glad. I consider it an act of charity. I know if I didn’t do that, there would be hundreds of other heartaches till he died.”
            Such were the words of Marie (Peggy) Beal, nurse of Dayton, O., who shot and killed Frank Warren Anderson, educational director of a local department store, early today in a room of a local hotel, spoken tonight as she lay in a critical condition in a hospital from a revolver wound self-inflicted. The shooting took place after the couple had lived together in this city several days, being introduced frequently as man and wife.
            The young woman told that she stood a good chance to recover, turned her face to the wall.
Woman Wants To Die
            “I want to die,” she said.
            Then she beckoned a hospital nurse to lean closer.
            “I’m not sorry I shot him,” she gasped. “He deserved it. I did right to shoot him. I should have killed him before I did.”
            At Miss Beal’s request, visitors were barred from her sick room today. Physicians at the city hospital tonight said that in spite of a bullet through her lung Miss Beal’s chances of recovery are good, and that her condition has improved during the day.
            Meanwhile Anderson, whose body lies in an undertaking shop awaiting directions from relatives in Collingsworth, N. J., was not without visitors. Women came to see the body of the man, declared by Miss Beal to have been “the perfect lover,” the man, who according to the girl, boasted to her of his conquests, told her 50 women had loved him, and declared:
            “Peg, I’m a devil. I love no woman.”
Scent Another Romance
            A possible echo of another romance was seen by the police today in the story of a woman who called the hotel where Anderson and Miss Beal had lived as man and wife on the telephone. This telephone call came the night after the tragedy, and the woman asked for “Mr. or Mrs. Anderson.” The hotel clerk told her what had happened, and the woman screamed.
            “Dead!” she cried. “Oh, no, I can’t believe it.”
            She asked where the body had been taken and today a woman about 30 years of age, who refused to give her name, called at the undertakers’ and asked to see the body. She said she had been a friend of the dead man and had known his in department store welfare work, she said. She was permitted to see the body, gazed at it for a long time and shuddered.
            “How could she?” she exclaimed, and added, “What devils women are!” Then left the place.
            Letters from Anderson’s father in Collingswood, N. J., found after the tragedy, spoke of a woman referred to as “B” who might be flowing the young man.
            Miss Beal said she believed “B” was Anderson’s abandoned wife.
            Anderson, it is indicated in his papers, was an officer in the air service during the war. He was never sent overseas apparently, but he prized his war experience greatly. It was the one streak of romance and adventure in workaday existence, and actually denied any service more exciting that campaigning in behalf of Liberty bond drives, the aviator-department store employe solaced himself after the way by writing romances. In one of these the hero was an army flier, who achieved undying fame during the war, and fell in love with a girl who scorned him because of his father’s wealth. Bu the flier found her at last, living in the South seas where she had fled to escape his attentions, and they ruled together in a kingdom of romance, tropical beauty and undying love. Letters from Anderson to Miss Beal spoke of the possibility of honeymooning in the South seas, in a country of mellow moonlight and eternal summer.
            But the romance of Anderson and Marie Beal ended in a hotel bedroom in the gray dawn, in an atmosphere not of tropical birds and flowers, but of clanging trolley cars, taxi-cabs and rumbling trains. Anderson, according to the girl, had told her that he had changed his mind – that he couldn’t marry her now. Later, perhaps, he had not divorced his wife yet, he said, according to Miss Beal.
            It was the second time a wedding had been postponed. She had come here in February and there had been no wedding.
Ought to Have Known
            “My faith survived that,” she said, “I ought to have known then. But I didn’t. I believed him. I thought he cared for me. And then he told me there were 50 others and showed me their names written in a diary and the cities where they lived. And my name was last of all.
            “Will there be more?” I asked him.
            “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe there will. Maybe I’ll go back to some of those. I can’t tell.”
            “Then I killed him. I ought to have done it before. All I’m sorry for is that I didn’t kill myself, too. There is nothing more for me.”
            Anderson, who had been here only a few months, bore the reputation of being quiet, reserved, interested in work and tennis and motor cars. During his working hours he was a figure of particular distinction, a young man getting ahead in the world. It was after working hours that romance ran amuck.
Discovered Diary
            Miss Beal told how her discovery of a diary, which she said she had not known Anderson was keeping, has verified his wonted boast of his many sweethearts – “hundreds of them.” One entry which she said she found in the diary was this:
            “Was ever mortal man sent into a vortex of swirling hearts as I have been?”
            The shooting of Anderson was not premeditate, Miss Beal declared. She said she was planning to go away, and then like a flash came the thought of shooting him. They were talking together.
            “I got up,” she said, “and took a revolver out of my trunk. The revolver had belonged to my father. I carried it around with me because I couldn’t sell it.”
Fired in the Dark
            “It was dark. I did not even know where I was aiming. I fired. I don’t know how many times.”
            Then she shot herself.
            “He was awake and knew when I got up.” Miss Beal said.
Collinswood, N. J., June 4 – Frank W. Anderson, who was shot in Kansas City by Peggy Beal, lived here until eight months ago, when he went west. He worked for a while in St. Louis and then went to Kansas City.
            “The boy left here for the west last October,” Frank M. Anderson, his father, said. “He was married and had a wife living somewhere in Indiana. The body is being sent home. He will be buried from my home in Collingswood.”
            Anderson, who has lived in Collingswood several years with his parents, served during the war at an aviation field in Indiana.
(The Morning Tulsa Daily World; Tulsa, OK; June 5, 1922. Transcribed by D. Donlon; Transcribed as written)

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