Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 132, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1915 — “MURDER-BY-MAIL” IS MYSTERY AT SPENCER [ARTICLE]

“MURDER-BY-MAIL” IS MYSTERY AT SPENCER

Receipt of Bottles of Quinine Containing Strychnine by Many Persons Led to Suicide.

A “poison-by-mail” mystery has created a great furar at Spencer, Owen county, where many bottles were received by prominent citizens of Owen county. Thfe bottles purported to be samples of quinine, but an analytic analysis showed that they contained strychnine and several deaths were narrowly averted. Suspicion finally pointed to the county coroner as the party guilty of sending out the “poison-by-mail” packages, which had been mailed from Indianapolis. When circumstances closed in about the coroner, whose name was F. Edward Drescher, his lifeless body was found Wednesday night and indications are that he committed suicide. It is believed he had an accomplice in the attempted murders and there seems no accounting for his strange tendency.