Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 303, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1920 — WORLD WAR HERO A SUICIDE [ARTICLE]

WORLD WAR HERO A SUICIDE

LIEUTEN’T PAT O’BRIEN KILLS SELF AT LOS ANGELES—WIFE CAUSE. Los Angeles, Dec. 18, 1:00 p. m. —Pat O’Brien killed himself with a .45 calibre army pistol in a fashionable hotel here following an unsuccessful effort to see his wife who is know as “Virginia Dare,” a motion picture actress. He was to have been decorated by the British government in a few days at Frisco. He wrote five letters to his wife before suiciding. The following pathetic note was found near his body: “Only a coward would do what-I am doing. But I guess lam one. With all my war record, I am just like the rest of the people in this world —a little bit of day. , “And to you, my sweet little Wife, I go, thinking of you and my dear, sweet mother, my sisters and brothers, and may the just God that answered my prayers in those 72 days I spent in making my escape from Germany once more answer them. “And bring trouble, sickness, disgrace and more bad luck than anyone in this world has 1 ' ever-had, and curse forever that awful woman, Sarah Ottis, that has brken our home and has taken you from me. “She caused this life of mine, that just a few minutes ago was so happy, to go on that sweet adventure of death. ; K “Please send what you find back to my dear mother in Momence, Hl. '“To the five armies I have been in, the birds, the animals I loved so well, to my friends, to all the world and to adventure, I say good-bye. “PAT O’BRIEN.”

Los Angeles, Calif., Dec. 18.—Police officials today are investigating the mysterious death of Lieut. Pat O’Brien of Momence, Hl., whose relatives live at Lowell, Ind., one of the most noted heroes of the great war, who was found shot to death, in his room in a local hotel. It it believed O’Brien shot himself because of a separation from his wife with whom he had vainly attempted a reconciliation. A not found by the police, it is declared, bears out this theory. The possibility that O’Briien’s death may have been caused by another person, however, is being investigated. O’Brien’s career during the war was most spectacular. While a member of the Canadian flying forces which he joined before America entered the war, he was shot down behind the German lines and captured. He was in a German hospital for many weeks and after his partial recovery was ordered to a prison camp. While en route to the camp he leaped from the window of a moving train and made his way across the whole of Germany to the Dutch frontier, burrowing his way under the famous German wire entanglement erected along the border and mote dead than alive. His health shattered he returned to America. Since the war he has written a book reciting his war experiences and has been in considerable demand as a lecturer jOn war topics. Beyon the accusation mentioned in O’Brien’s note, no reason was known today for the estrangement between his wife and himself. They had been married less than a year ago, it was stated, and came here last June. Mrs. O’Brien was a Miss Virginia Elizabeth Allen, a famous beauty of Washington, D. C. Mrs. Sarah Ottis and Mrs. O’Bnen had been stopping at the same hotel where O’Brien killed himself. Mrs. O’Brien was prostrated from grief this morning. Mrs. Ottis was quoted as saying to those who interviewed her: r “I was staying with Mrs. O’Bnen because she was afraid damage would ‘be done her by her husband. -He had been irrational for several weeks 99 One Los Angeles newspaper raid it hid been advised that Mrs. Ottis is the divorced wife of a Dr. Ottis, of Springfield, Hl. - O’Brien was 29 years old and was of American-Irish descent Dr. Howard C. Seager, who had been O’Brien’s physician, was quoted today as saying he behoved tire aviator was mentally unbalanced, due to his war experiences. O’Brien appeared in Rensselaer at the Armistice Day celebration in 1919, and was well known here.