Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1916 — FURTHER DETAILS OF WOLCOTT TRAGEDY [ARTICLE]

FURTHER DETAILS OF WOLCOTT TRAGEDY

Note, Left. By Distracted Man Furnishes Only Clew —Suggested That Speculation Was Cause. “Good bye, Bess, and Sister. " Couldn’t stand it any longer. I book Donald with me. You could get along better with only one. My insurance papers are at the office. Take good care of Sister, bless her heart. Good bye forever. —Bert.”

The above note left by Bert E. Rich, the Wolcott elevator man whose tragic act set all of Wolcott and this part of Indiana into a quandry furnishes the only clew to the cause that caused him to take the life of his little son and himself. Bess, referred to in the note, is his wife, and Sister was the pet name of their little 4-years-old daughter. The mother and little girl had gone to Goodland to visit relatives and al! day Wednesday Mr. Rich was at his elevator as usual and apparently in the best of spirits. The deed is supposed to have been committed at about 5 o’clock in the evening for two reasons, one because, the clocks in the house had been stopped at that time, indicating that Mr. Rich had stopped them to indicate the time the act was done. Another reason was supplied by the coroner, Dr. Gable, of Monticello, who decided at the inquest held Thursday afternoon that the bodies had been dead about eighteen or twenty hours. When Mr. Rich did not come to the office Thursday morning and no answer was received when a telephone ~ call was made to the home the bookkeeper at the elevator, William S. Beal, thought it strange and at noon he went to the house, accompanied by Charles Martin, another elevator man. . They rapped at the doors but received no response and then called Town Marshal Pemberton and they forced an entrance and soon found the bodies of the father and son on a bed in an upstairs room. The boy, a handsome lad, lay at the head of the bed crosswise, with a bullet hole behind his right ear. Nearby and alongside lay the father with a bullet wound in his head and his hand clutching a 32-caliber revolver which contained three emptycartridges. That is about all the story and the reason for the terrible deed is entirely conjectural. It was a hasty conclusion of some that he had lost extensively by speculating on the board of trade, but this lacks substantiation and even if it were the case would not expalin how he could have brought himself to the point of taking the life of his little son. The child’s name -was Donald and his age was nine years. The father was only 34 years of age. He had been in Wolcott for only about two years, himself and brother having purchased the elevator there. The business is understood not to have turned out very welL Bert was a happy dispositioned man and had many friends. He was the last man any person would have thought capable of the deed committed and temporary insanity seems a reasonable explanation of the tragedy. He was a member of the Knights of Pythias and Masonic lodges. He was raised at Remington and had spent his life in the grain business, having been in business at different times at Brook, Good land and Wolcott. His widow is a cousin of Mrs. George W. Hopkins, of this city. The funeral will be held in Wolcott Sunday and the body will be taken to Goodland for burial.