Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 125, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1915 — PUT END TO HIS SUFFERING [ARTICLE]

PUT END TO HIS SUFFERING

Trapper, Fatally Mangled by Bear, Commits Suicide—Leaves Pathetic Note. The dews of a terrible and dramatic tragedy of the hills was brought to country when William Austin, a prospector, reached Seattle, Wash., from Valdes, Alaska. He brought with him a scrap of paper upon which King Thurman, a widely known trapper and prospector, had written a last

message after he had been mangled by ‘a bear's claws and before he ended his sufferings with his revolver. , Austin and John Wilk, a companion, found the body of Thurman near his cabin. The trapper had ended his life by shooting himself in the temple. His right side had been torn and chewed from hip to shoulder, and the note which he left had been printed in letters formed by his own life blood with his left hand, laboriously and apparently when he was suffering tor-

ture most terribly from his wounds. ; The ground was tom up for 20 feet with claws and boots, and a crushed water pail under the body of the trapper showed what brought him from his cabin unarmed. The note read: “Have been tom up by brown bear. No show to get out Good-by. lam sane, but suffer terribly—want death.” The irregularity with which the last few words of the note were printed showed dearly that Thurman could barely complete them.