Engineer Jim Taylor
Cincinnati Enquirer, 28 May 1897, page 9
UNKNOWN ASSASSIN MADE SURE OF JIM TAYLOR'S
DEATH
When a man has two bullets in his neck, he will usually tell why, but Jim Taylor, an old steamboat man is an exception to the rule. Taylor is lying critically wounded in the house of Jenny Turner at 433 West Fourth street, Newport and he claims that he has no idea who shot him. The case is one of the most mysterious the Newport police have ever endeavored to solve.
The neighborhood in which the shooting occurred contains a number of houses of questionable repute. Jenny Turner, in whose house Taylor is now lying, was separated from her husband for more than a year. Recently Taylor has been employed as engineer on a small steamer which carried passengers between Cincinnati and the Queen City Race Track, and have been a frequent caller at the house of the Turner woman. At 6 o'clock Wednesday night Taylor called at the house intending to bid Mrs. Turner goodby, having shipped on a boat which left for a down river port yesterday morning. According to Mrs. Turner's statement, Taylor left the house at about 8 o'clock saying that he would return, and that she heard nothing of him until 2 o'clock Thursday morning, when she heard two pistol shots in the alley in the rear of her house.
She ran into the alley and found Taylor groaning and unconscious on the ground. She says that she saw two men running down the alley in the direction of the river. She and her son and daughter carried Taylor into her house and summoned Drs. Truesdale and Anderson to attend him. They found that two 38 caliber bullets had penetrated Taylor's left check, plowed through the base of the tongue and lodged in the muscles of the neck, close to the spinal cord.
Either wound would ordinarily have been fatal but Taylor withstood the shock, and apparently had a chance for his life. The fact that the shots were fired from the left side precludes the theory of attempted suicide. The would be murderer must have stood at the wounded man's elbow and fired two shots in close succession as the man's face is frightfully powder burned and both bullets took almost the same course.
Yesterday the bullets were extracted and the physicians said that Taylor had a chance to recover. Last night an ENQUIRER reporter talked to the wounded man. He said twice that he did not know who shot him. The Newport police have a clew (sic) in the case and will probably make an arrest today.