Sherman Daily
Democrat
August 13, 1886
AT
HOWE
Intelligence was received in the city about
8 p.m. Saturday, that the dead body of a
Negro man had been found in a thicket on the
farm of Capt. J.C. Marshall, about two miles
from the town of Howe. Justice Taylor,
of that precinct, was sick, and the nearest
justice being Esquire Hinkle, of Sherman,
that official was accordingly summoned, and
in company with a Register representative
left for Howe on the 3:30 train yesterday
morning, and arrived in that village in time
to procure conveyances for the scene and
arrived there before sunrise. The
evidence of two young men by the name of
Bradshaw and Burnham is corroborative, and
is, in substance, as follows:
About three weeks ago Sam Brown, the Negro
now dead, was taken with a strange fit in
the stable lot, just west of Capt.
Marshall's residence. While in this
spasm it took several parties to hold him,
and although he received prompt and skillful
medical attention at once, he relapsed into
a fever, from which he had just recovered,
but which from his actions of late must in
all probability have deranged his mental
capabilities. This belief that he was
losing his mind had been strengthened by the
fact that he has been laboring under the
hallucination that the spirit of a young
lady who recently died in the house is
haunting it and he has frequently told
stories of what he would hear during the
night. On Friday morning he went to
the residence of Mr. Gerrell, who lives
about a half mile from the Marshall
residence, and asked for a couple of charges
of duck shot, which he procured, stating at
the time that he had seen a dog in the woods
near by and that he wanted to shoot
it. He came home and Saturday morning
got up pretty early, and passed through a
room where some young men were sleeping,
with Capt. Marshall's double barreled shot
gun in his hand.
Some one asked him where he was going, and
he replied that he was going out to drive up
some loose cattle. He left the house
and about a half hour after a gun shot was
heard, but no especial attention was
paid to it. Sam did not return to
breakfast, but no attention was paid to the
matter, and when he didn't turn up for
dinner it was thought that he perhaps had
gotten sick again and stopped in at some of
the neighbors' houses. About 5
o'clock, the young men, Bradshaw and
Burnhan, got on horses and went out to look
for him and found
HIS DEAD BODY
lying in a thicket, about two hundred yards
from the farm, and in the direction from
which the gun shot report had come. He was
lying at full length with his arms
out-stretched. His hat sitting to the right
of the body, about four feet away, while a
double barreled shotgun which showed signs
of recently having been discharged was found
lying about six feet from his feet.
There was a gun shot wound in the left
breast which ranged upward, coming out near
the neck and which must necessarily have
been almost instantaneous. His hands
were bloody and the shirt showed signs of
having been torn from off the wound.
There was the print in the ground where the
butt of the gun had been placed, and it is
supposed that after placing the muzzle of
the gun against his breast he pushed the
trigger off with a stick. He was about
twenty two years old and bore a good
name. The jury returned a verdict in
accordance with the above facts.
News Index
Susan
Hawkins
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