Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1920 — FENCE FOREMAN KILLS SELF [ARTICLE]

FENCE FOREMAN KILLS SELF

Jesse Layman of Veedersburg Ended Life With Razor at Fair Oaks. I Coroner W. J. Wright was called to Fair Oaks yesterday morning by the suicide of Jesse Layman, a C. & E. I. railroad employe, whose home was at Veedersburg. He was in charge of a gang of men working on the fences of the Coal road and the gang was making their headquarters in box cars at Fair Oaks. Yesterday morning the men had all eaten breakfast, Layman with the others, and he left his companions soon after and went outside the mess car. When the men started to work, one of them was looking after more fence posts and in going to one of the box cars he saw the foreman lying on the floor of the car. He called the others and they got up in the car and found Layman had cut a deep gash in his throat with a razor, severing the jugular vein, and was stone dead. The body was brought to Rensselaer by Coroner Wright, who communicated with Veedersburg, and at this writing he is awaiting instructions about shipping the body there. Layman, who was about 35 years of age and leaves a wife and three or four children, had been in the employ of the C. & E. I. for several years. He had been in poor health for some time and it is supposed that this fact prompted him to take his life.