Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1910 — WIFE MURDERER BIDDLE [ARTICLE]

WIFE MURDERER BIDDLE

Once Lived At Or Near Remington and Was Prosecuted Here for Desertion. Monday’s papers contained a dispatch from Brookville, Ind., telling of the murder of Mrs. Charles Biddle at the home of her uncle. Louis Koehler, of Peppertown, six miles from Brookville. at 4 a. m., Sunday, by blowing her head off With a shotgun and then setting fire to her body after pouring coal oil over htr. Biddle then fled to Metamora where he forced a barber to rise and shave off his mustache and beard. He then made his escape, to Indianapolis, but was captured at Brookston Monday afternoon. • ? Biddle was once a resident of or near Remington, we understand. At the Bebruary 1908, term of court here he was arrested at Lefayette. where he has relatives, by Deputy Sheriff Joe O’Connor on complaint of his wife at that time, Edith Biddle, charged with wife desertion. Lafayette attorneys came up here and com prom sed the matter

and the criminal action was dismissed and a civil action begun, in whch a judgment for S3OO was rendered, the money to be paid into court and disbursed by the clerk, SSO cash and $lO per month, to the wife. The money was paid and Clerk Warner sent the woman the last $lO payment only a short time ago. She got a divorce after the trouble here and is married again. Biddle had also married again at Lafayette, it seems, his wife being formerly Annie Weidman of Connorsville. She had also been married before. She left him two weeks ago and went to the home of his bachelor uncle. Biddle came to Koehler’s home at 9 o'clock Saturday night and demanded to see his wife. Their meeting. Koehler says, apparently was friendly. Biddle pleaded dramatically with his wife to return to him, promising that he would treat her properly, but she hesitated. What further conversation took place between Biddle and his wife is not known to Koehler, as he left the couple alone, hoping that they would become reconciled.

In the early morning Koehler, who was asleep in a building adjoining the house, was awakened by the. shot and rushed to a doorway, but was met by Biddle, who declared that he would kil 1 him if lie interfered. Biddle carried a shotgun. When Biddle escaped, following the murder, Koehler ran to the home of a neighbor. William Alley, a schoolteacher, and together broke in a door of the Koehler home. They found the body of Mrs. Biddle in flames. It was on the floor. The head halt been shattered. It was with great difficulty that they saved the house from destruction.

• Yesterday’s papers, in a dispatch from Lafayette, stated that Biddle was arrested at Brookston, where and at Chalmers, he was also well-known, 3 Monday afternoon and is now in jail at Lafayette. The dispatch says that he denies that he is guilt}' of the murder, saying that he was awakened in the night by two shots fired into the room in which he and his wife were sleeping, and that, in terror, he ran from the house. He caught a train and arrived in Indianapolis at 10:30 o’clock Monday morning. He says that he did not know his wife had been killed until he read of her murder in an Indianapolis paper. His father and mother reside at Brookston. .

He came from Indianapolis to to Lafayette and from there went to Brookston. On the train Biddle was recognized by twe men. who got off with him at P.rookston, and one shadowed him while the other telephoned to the police at Lafayette. Marshal William C. Holcraft and his deputy. Frank Ellis, both of Brookston. arrested Biddle after a chase and held him until officers from Lafayette arrived in an automobile and brought him to this city, where he is being held for the authorities\ of Franklin county. ' 4 l %