Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1911 — INVESTIGATES DEATH [ARTICLE]

INVESTIGATES DEATH

Of Retired Farmer Found in a Cistern With Head Badly Mutilated. Fowler, Ind., ’June 23.—Peter Larsen, aged 63, a retired farmer, was found dead in a cistern in the rear of his home here this morning. His head had been badly cut as if with an ax and it was at first supposed he had been murdered, but later developments tended to support the suicide theory. Larsen and his wife had been quarreling all night, according to neighbors, and at 3:15 this morning was seen in the yard engaged in an argument. Mrs. Larsen said her husband beat her and then left the house, and she heard no more of him. Coroner LeSage, who investigated the death decided that Larsen committed suicide. The inI quest was completed late this I afternoon. The testimony given at the inquest indicated that Larsen left the house at about 4 o’clock after quarreling with his wife, and went to a back shed, 100 feet behind the house, and with a shorthandled hatchet cut a huge gash in his head, extending from the forehead to the crown, penetrating his skull at one point. It is believed that in a dying condition he crawled from the shed t,o the

kitchen behind the house and threw himself into the opening. The bulk of the testimony was to the effect that the Larsens were unhappily mated, and that a separation had been partly agreed to, and only last week Larsen told a neighbor that he intended to apply for a divorce. Mrs. Larsen, who was kept under surveillance (luring the inquest, was released last night. Peter Larsen and Mrs. Mett Freak were married January 27, at Clifton, 111., at the Danish Lutheran church, and came at once to Fowler, where they have since resided.