People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1894 — AGREED TO DIE TOGETHER. [ARTICLE]

AGREED TO DIE TOGETHER.

An Aged Couple of Maryland Cut Each Other's vl rists. Baltimore, Md., April 20. John Benkert and wife, an aged couple residing at Rosedale, Baltimore county, agreed to die together. With a keenedged razor he severed the arteries of her wrists, and she then took the weapon and performed a like deed for him. The wife is dead and the husband’s life hangs by a thread. The couple had had trouble with some neighbors,and a warrant was out for their arrest When a policeman went to the house to serve the warrant he found Benkert lying on the bed apparently dead, while his wife, wearing only one garment, crouched by the bedside with her head in the covers, one knee on the floor and one arm resting on a chair. She was dead. He said: “I cut my wife’s wrist so that she died. She cut mine first. I would rather be dead than be called a thief, and when my wife found I was going to kill myself she wanted to die, too. We arranged that she should kill me and I should kill her.”