Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1893 — MURDER, ARSON AND SUICIDE [ARTICLE]

MURDER, ARSON AND SUICIDE

Roanoke, Huntington County, the Seen* of a Tragedy. Roanoke, a town of about six hundred inhabitants, in Huntington county, is all excitement. Saturday night it was awakened from its quiet by an alarm of fire. The burning buildng was a small frame occupied by Christian Habagoz and his wife, aged, respectively, seventy-’five and seventy years. When an entrance was forced the wife was found upon a bed, her ' throat cut from ear to ear and the bed on fire. The body was removed and a search made for the husband. The trap door leading to the garret was blocked and entrance was impossible. That part of the building was on fire also. When the roof fell in the charred body of the husband was seen Upon the garret floor. The evidence brought out at the coroner’s inquest was to the effect that Habagoz was very eccentric and peculiar and he was subject to fits of insanity. For several weeks Mrs. Hagbagoz has been in feeble health, and he would permit no one to see her, not allowing even a physician to attend her. he was in one of his spells again Saturday and he was heard to say that upon the death of his wife he would shoot himself. Circumstances point to the c inclusion that he cut his wife’s throat, set tho house on fire and took his own life. He was seen grinding a large knife the evening before the tragedy. Such a knife fell from the garret with his burned body. He was a native of Germany and had no nearer relatives than two nieces. In the ashes was found nearly two hundred dollars in gold and silver. This was secreted in jars in a hole under the house. It is supposed that a large stun in paper money was consumed.