Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1911 — BURGLAR KILLS HIMSELF. [ARTICLE]

BURGLAR KILLS HIMSELF.

Hobo Sent Up from White County Cuts Prison Term Short. John Smith, aged 39, one of the burglars who robbed the Marsh Bros, store at Burnettsville and was sent up for It Dec. 23rd, 1907, killed himself Saturday by plunging from the fifth floor of the cell house at the State Prison to the stone floor forty feet below. He had escaped the notice of the guards long enough to mount the four foot railing of the balcony while walking along the range and from the top he made his fatal leap head foremost. His skull was crushed, and he was dead when th e prison physician reached him. He w”as serving an indeterminate sentence of ten to twenty years, and the time evidently grew too heavy on him. He was one of the hoboes who were afterward implicated in the killing of the sheriff of Pulaski county. His companion in the Marsh burglary and also in the murder of Wm. F. Webb. They were tried jointly and sent up together. _