Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1909 — MONON PASSENGER KILLS MAN NEAR LEE STATION. [ARTICLE]

MONON PASSENGER KILLS MAN NEAR LEE STATION.

Body Brought to Rensselaer and Is Thought to Be That of Missing Chicago Collector. Passenger train No. 6, due in Rensselaer at 3:17, killed a man about three-fourths of a mile this Side of Lee station Monday afternoon at about 3 o’clock. According to the en? gineer, he saw the man walking along the track and when about a hundred feet from him the man stepped between the rails and when the train approached him he deliberately lunged into it. As soon as the train could be stopped it was backed up to the place where the suicide occurred and the mangled remains were gathered up and loaded Into the baggage car and brought to Rensselaer. Coroner Wright, in the absence of the coroner of White county, took charge of the remains and they were taken to the Wright undertaking parlors, where they were viewed by the railroad surgeon, the marshal and others. The head was almost severed from the body, the right side of the head was crushed and the brains had fallen out, the neck was crushed, thd right ear cut off, the right leg cut off at the hip, the left leg broken below the knee and the left arm broken. Until the body had been dressed it was impossible to form much of an idea about the looks of the man, but after the undertaker had dressed the wounds and sewed up the cuts on the face, neck and head the features were very plainly brought out. The man was apparently 35 or 40 years of age and prematurely gray. He wore good clothes, good clean underwear, lisle thread hose, white shirt, collar and tie and a pocket book containing $9.75 was found on him, but not a thing by which he could be identified. As the train had killed him in White county, the body was placed in charge of Coroner H. C. Westfall, of Wolcott, who came here this Tuesday morning. He took the deposition of the engineer, whose story was to the effect above stated. The man’s body was immaculately clean ancT his hands were soft and white and it was evident that he had held some clerical position. His pocket book had been purchased in Chicago and two or three clippings from a Chicago paper referred to western land for sale. ■ It seemed quite sure that the body could not be identified, but J. J. Montgomery, manager for the Jasper County Telephone Co., recalled seeing a picture in Monday’s Chicago Record-Herald of a man named Frank H. Witten, who had disappeared from Chicago last Friday after being injured on the head caused by a fall in the office of the Peoples’ Gas, Light and Coke Co. He was apparently temporarily insane and the most thorough search by his family, the police and his friends had failed to discover his whereabouts. A copy of the picture was secured and several who compared it with the dead man thought it to be the same man, and Marshal Parks called up the Chicago police department and learned that Whitten was still missing. It is probable that some one who knew Whitten will be here on the milk train and thus determine whether or not this is the missing man. No formal inquest will be held, but the coroner will go to the place where the suicide occurred and after talking to some people who are reported to have seen the man, he will render his verdict. If it transpires that the body is not that of Whitten then the burial will be made at the expense of White county, where the killing occurred.