Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1893 — MURDER AND ARSON. [ARTICLE]

MURDER AND ARSON.

A Most Serious Charge Made Against Adolph. Niese, of Ottumwa, lowa. Ottuma (Iowa) special: There, is now little doubt that Ottumwa was the scene, Tuesday night, of an atrocious crime, it being tho murder of a woman and her babe by tho unnatural husband and father, who sought to conceal the crime by burning the house and cremating the bodies. Tho alleged murderer is a German, 39 years of age, named Adolph Niese. Pending the verdict of the coroner’s jury he was arrested. Niese’s house was discovered on lire, and burned to the ground with all its contents. Niese and three children, aged 9, 7. and 5, got safely out, but his wife and 9-moaths-old baby were burned to death. Much sympathy was felt for the afflicted husband until ugly rumors got afloat, which were confirmed by evidence taken by the coroner. It was ulleged that Niese had been untrue to his wife, that he had quarreled with her, that her life was insured for $5,009 in his favor, that the household goods were ful'y insured, and that Niese had killed his wife and child and then set fire to the house. The testimony of Niese’s own children before the coroner’s jury and others is exceedingly damaging. Niese took the three ohildren out of the house to the home of Mrs. Pease, a neighbor. The oldest little girl told Mrs. Pease that her father had (old her that morning that if the house burned and her mamma was burned up they would have money to build a new house, they would have nice clothes, and would have a new mamma. The sister or the dead woman, who is Implicated in the dreadlul affair, is unmarried and came from Germany three months ago. She has been arrested and is now in the oity jail. Her name ia Hattie Volz. The post-mortem of the charred remains of Mrs. Niese shows that the skull had been crushed, and there Was a large clot of blood on one side of the head. It is not known whether the infant was killed before being cremated cr not. The woman’s life was insured for $5,000 in the Covenant Mutual Benefit Association of Illinois. One of the most suspicious circumstances is that Niese was fully dressed, even to overshoes, before arousing his neighbors, and that anions the first offsets rescued from the burnng building were his in* surance policies.