The Denison
Daily News
Saturday, June 6, 1874
pg.3
A THIEF ARRESTED
And a Dose of Morphine Fixes Him
Thursday
night the till at Maupin's store, Red River
City, was tapped and some
four dollars in small change extracted.
Lee Hall was informed of
the robbery and requested to look out for
the thief. The next
morning as Hall was returning from the
Nation, after the encounter with
the Gormley party, and while at Colbert's
ferry, noticed a man riding a
pony. His suspicion being awakened, he
arrested him and found
upon his person the missing money from the
store. The man was
noticed soon after the search, to take a
small bottle from his pocket
and drink the contents. On being asked
what it was he explained
that it was whisky and salt. On their
arrival at Maupin's store,
the prisoner went to the well and filled the
bottle with water and
drank it. Soon after, he got off his
horse saying he was sick,
but Hall told him he would shoot him it he
didn't go on, and he mounted
his pony again. At Duck Creek, this
side of Red River City, he
again complained of being sick, and soon
after had a spasm, and in a
few minutes died. Before his death, he
said the bottle contained
morphine, that he was accustomed to fits,
that he took it to prevent
them, and had taken an over dose. The
man was a German about 40
years of age and spoke broken English.
He said his name was Mead
or Smeet, as near as could be made out, and
that he lived about 16
miles from Waco.
The
body was brought to this city and a
postmortem examination of the
stomach was to have been held last night by
Drs. Sanford, Feild and
Acheson.
Some
think the man was deranged, others, that he
is guilty of some great
crime that led him to take his own life to
avoid discovery and
punishment.
Esq. Kirk is to have his photograph
taken, in the hope he will prove to be old
man Bender.
