Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1904 — MAN FOUND DEAD. [ARTICLE]

MAN FOUND DEAD.

Anthony Earl Who Disappeared Last November, Found in a Woods Pasture in Milroy Tp. .T While out looking for some of stock Monday morning, Joseph Nelson of near Queen Citv school house, Milroy township, pame upon the body of a man lying in a clump of bushes in the pasture about 300 yards from Nelson’s house. Nelson arroused his neighbors and Coroner Wright was telephoned for and went out to the scene. The man had apparently laid there for many months, although not as badly decomposed as one would have expected. He was about 31 years of age, had on fairly good clothes, and a ladies’ gold watch and chain, an Odd Fellows pin and $6.60 in money was found on his person. The hair was practically all gone from his head, but a heavy sandy mustache adorned the upper lip. This and the clothing and %atch were about the only means of identification.'^

It was learned that one Anthony Earl of Sheldon, 111., a single man, who had worked for Ed Tebo of Newton tp., last fall, he being a cousin of Tebos wife, had been missing since the 15th of last November. Search had been made for him by his relatives and they had been able to trace him from Sheldon to Remington where he staid all night and thence to Joseph Jarbis’, four miles southwest of where the body was found, where it is said he got a drink of milk Sunday morning, Nov. 15. Mr. Tebo went out to the scene Monday afternoon and identified the remains as those of Earl, also the watch and pin as those carried by him. Quite a number of people from town went out to view the body and a photograph was taken of it as it lay in the underbrush, undisturbed except for turning on its back. When found it lay on the side and was partially drawn up as if in agony in the death struggles. Relatives of the dead man were communicated with at Sheldon, and they came on to Remington, where the body was taken Monday evening, and there took charge of it and drove to Sheldon with it. Earl is said to have been an industrous man, of good habits and a saving disposition. Some years ago the remains of his father were disinterred and he was permitted to view them. This had such an effect on his mind that he was later declared insane and was confined in an asylum for a time. He had been “acting queerly” and his relatives had talked of returning him to the asylum, and it is said that when he left Sheldon in November he declared that he would kill himself before he would ever be taken to the asylum again, and that they would never see him alive again. It seems to be the opinion that'lie committed suicide where found, using poison, and that the continued cold weather during the winter preserved the body until now. Earl was born in the west part of Carpenter tp., this county.