Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1877 — She Killed a Man. [ARTICLE]

She Killed a Man.

Soon after daylight Tuesday morning a widow woman occupying a cottage on Fort street east ran out upon the street and excitedly called to a policeman: “ Come over here—hurry—quick—l’vekilled a man stone dead!” “ Where is he?” asked the officer as he came up. “ Rignt around in the back yard, sir! Oh! sir, I heard a noise at the window, and I got up, and there was a burglar trying to'get in, sir! 1 took tbe shot-gun from behind the door and fired, and you’ll find the corpse under the window! Oh! I can’t hardly catch my breath, and I’m afraid they’ll put me in jail!” The officer walked around to the rear of the house, looked over every foot of ground, and failed to find a corpse. One of the windows was raised, but there was no blood, no marks of shot and no evidence that a man had been hit. “ You are sure you saw a man, and sure you hit him, are you ?” he asked of the widow. “ Oh, I know I did—l’m certain of it.” “ But where is the body?” “ Perhaps his partner carried it off,” she suggested. Tbe officer looked all over the windowcasing for shot marks, but there were none, and he asked for the gun. It was lying across the bed, and he was only a minute discovering that it was not loaded, and had not been for months. The lock, too, was out of order, the hammer broken, and no one could have fired the gun. “Iguessyou didn’t kill a man with this,” he remarked, as he put the weapon down. “Why didn’t I?” she innocently inquired. When he had explained matters she burst into tears and wailed out: “ It’s awtul to be a widow, and shoot at a burglar, and to miss him, and to find outlhat you never shot at all! Seems as if everybody was down on me!”— Detroit Free Press.