Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 133, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1904 — MYSTERY OF AUTO RIDE. [ARTICLE]

MYSTERY OF AUTO RIDE.

Professional Chauffeur Slain on a Lonely Country Road. Iri the darkness of a lonely country road, John W. Bate, Jr., a professional chauffeur and son of a wealthy man, prominent in the automobile world, was glaiu the Other night. The scene was on a road paralleling the Joliet electric line, two and a half miles southeast-of Lemont, 111. There Bate was found leaning foi-M-ard in the front seat of the automobile with a bullet wound in the back of his head. The automobile had been turned about. A revolver lay on the scat. A carefully laid scheme is believed by many to have preceded the murder. Solution of the midnight crime, presenting elements of mystery u-orthy the genius of a Sherlock Holmes, seemed to baffle the efforts of the police. That young Bate was the victim of bank robbers, an angry passenger or a pedestrian was advanced. The woman motive was taken by Morris Stokes, employed with Bate, who says that for weeks Bate had been receiving gushing love letters from an infatuated society woman who had ridden with him. An unsigned letter found upon the body evidently had been M-ritten by a jilted woman. The police theory m-.-is that two men planning a bank robbery tried to force Bute to carry them to Joliet and that he rebelled. This rebellion, in the minds of the police, determined the safe blowers to make way with a man who had become dangerous to them. Therefore, after a bitter quarrel, they shot and killed the chauffeur M-hile he was bending over his steering apparatus. It is urged in opposition to this theory that the robbers and murderers did not denude the machine of identification evidence- —the number 278. Daniel Canary, Bate’s employer, after he had heard all the details, supported this theory. Opponents of the desperado theory contended that Bate was slain by some one over M-hom he had almost run his machine. This is the view taken by the coroner of Will county, who contends that Bate had been running his automobile recklessly, had probably lost his way after taking a fare to Lemont and nar-roM-ly escaped killing a pedestrian. “Everybody knows the residents of this locality are quick enough to shoot,” said the coroner’s assistant, “and it requires no big stretch of the imagination to find a farmer of this neck of the woods pulling out a gun and taking a shot at an automobile w-hiclnrhad nearly run over him.” It is believed that the chauffeur was shot M-hile the machine was still in motion and that the person who fired the shot experienced difficulty in bringing the machine to a standstill.