Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1889 — DR. CRONIN MURDERED. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DR. CRONIN MURDERED.

HIS MUTILATED BODY FOUND IN CHICAGO. His Head Horribly Gashed with a Hatchet and His Naked Corpse Thrown Into a Sewer Catch-Basin—The Swollen Body Fully Identified by His Friends. [Chicago telegram.] Dr. P. H. Cronin was indeed murdered. His body, doubled up in a catchlasin at Evanston avenve and North Fifty-ninth street, Lake View, was found by a guig of ditch cleaners Wednesday afternoon. Twenty-five of Cronin’s friends identified the corpse. The finding of the body intensifies lhe mystery. The w.llest speculations a:e indulged. Henry Rosch, John Feningar, and William Nichols, employes of the Lake View Department of Public Works, were engaged in cleaning the ditches and examin-

ing the catch-basins. Atout 4 o’clock they arrived at the corner of North Fiftyninth street and Evanston road. Rosch crossed over from the north to the south side of the street where he began shoveling out the sand in the ditch near the catchbasin. When within a few feet of the basin hedetected the odor of a dead bedy and called out to bis assistants: “I guess there’s a dead dog here.” He got down on his knees and looked into the catch basin through the iron bars at the side. What he saw made him recoil with horror. There, wedged down into the narrow catch basin, was the body of a man partly screened from view by a lot of cotton batting that had been thrown over it. He called his two assistants, who merely glanced at the body and retreat el. Rosch told the men to stay there and at once ran to Argyle Park station, where hetelephoned to the Lake View police station an account of his discovery. The patrol wagon hastened to the spot. Upon arriving there the officers removed the topof the catch-basin. The body was then clearly brought to view. It was floating, face downward, in about two fest of water. The body was doubled up almost like a partly opened jack-knife. Great ax-like cuts were in the head, and numerous other marks of violence. It was immediately taken from the hole, wrapped in a blanket, and taken to the Lake View police station. The news of the discovery soon spread, throughout the town of Lake View, and and a large, shoving crowd gathered in front of the station house and clamored to see the body. A squad of policemen pushed them tack and admitted, two or three at a time, the frienis and acquaintan es of the murdered min, who had been not fl d to come. Dr. F. S. Sieber, a member of the Royal league with Cronin and a friend of eight years’ standing, was the first to see the body. He looked at it long and doubtfully “My impression, ” said he, “isthat it is the body o’ Dr. Cronin, but I won’t be positive.” Janies F. Scanlan, one of the doctor’s nearest friends and the one who has been leading the investigation, arrived. He looked the body over carefully. Swinging by a small silken < ord from the dead man’s neck was a small agate “Agnus Dei, ” a pious emblem of the Catholic church. “That was the doctor’s,” said he. “The doctor had remarkably hairy arms and legs; so has this man. The hair and mustache—what is left of them—are those of Cronin. Cronin was 5 feet 11 inches. How long is this man?” The body was measured. It was just 5 feet 11 inches in length. “Let me see the teeth,” said Mr. Scanlan; “that will settle it.” The lips were parted and a row of large upper teeth revealed, the right eye-tooth missing. In the range of lower teeth was one conspicuously black.

‘ Those are the teeth of Dr. Cronin, and lam certain this is his body. I can’t'Stand this; let me get out.” As Mr. Scenan went out Mr. T. T. Conkiin, looking sick and ft int, came in and looked at the discolored mass of flesh for fully fifteen minutes and thin declared that it "a. the body of Dr. Cronin. J. C. O’Keefe of 126 Washington street, tie r octo.-’s lailcr, measured the body ai d >a'd he was certain it was that of Cronin. Hal Buck, the barber at 470 North Clark street, who has dressed the doctor’s hair ana beard for more than a year, recognized the remains as those of the doctor. There was seven horrible wounds on the bead apparently inflicted with a hatchet or some similar weapon. Dr. J. R. Brandt of the county hospital made a careful examination cf the wounds. He described the wounds as follows: A wound on the left temple, at the corner of the left eye, one and one-half inches long. This wound crushed the skull and ' may have caused instant death. A wound one and one-half inches long, cut to the skull, on the left parietal bone and extending to the frontal bone. A wound, also cut to the skull, three inchos in length on the occipital bone at its juncture with the parietal lone. A cut over the occipital bone Io or nehes long. A cut over the ri.ht parietal bone two inches in length. A heavy < outusion on the frontal bone, near the edge of the hair. A bruise on the right leg near the knee. In plain language the skull was crushed at the outer corner of the left eye; there was a big dent in the forehead; a cut nearly two inches long on top of the head; a cut over two inches iong midway between the left ear and the top of the’ head; another cut joining this at the lower end and extending toward the lefttemple for two inches; a huge < cut nearly four inches long on the back of the head, extending nearly from ear to ear, and a. gash under the chin.

DR. P. H. CRONIN.