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HORROR OF HORRORS.THE MOST TERRIBLE TALEEVER TOLD. *A Frightful Crime Most FrightfullyAvenged.The Nemesis Which Pursued an Indiana Grave Robber, and Hunted Him to a Disgusting Death and a Ghastly Grave.Special Dispatch to the Enquirer.South Bend, Ind., March 22.—Several months ago the grave of Sarah Platts, a young lady who died of consumption, was found disturbed, and an examination showed that the head of the corpse was missing What led to the discovery was the finding « a human jaw-bone by Fred. Auer, a farme* who lived near the county graveyard, som-eight miles from the city, where the bod' was buried. The fact that only the htad wa taken threw suspicion on an amateur phrtr nologist named Gordon Truesdaie. True-dale occupied a small farm in the vicinity with a wife aud a family of iour girls, th* oldest not more than eight years old. H-was a handsome, broad-shouideied fellow, with a fair education, but lazy and shiltless. His great hobby was phrenology, and he occasionally lectured on that subject in country school-houses. His ambition to possess a collection of skulls was well known in the neighborhood, and the desecration of the Platts girl’s grave was laid at his door, although he was never openly charged with it.About three week ago Truesdaie went to a physician and asked if a person could becoun poisoned in handling a dead body. He received an affirmative reply, and appeared to be much troubled. He complained to hi* wife that his nose pained him terribly, and he believed he was taking the erysipelas. He began doctoring himself with bread and1 milk poultices, but without success. His face began to swell rapidly, and in less than three days it and his head became twice their natural size, and lostall semblance of human shape. A physician was called in against the wishes of Truesdaie. He found the man suffering terribly. His lips were drawn by thetension of the skin, and writhed themselves away from the teeth in unceasing pain. The cuticle across the bridge ol the nose and over the forehead was so distended with the mattery substance underneath that it seemed as if it must burst every moment. The eyes were swollen almost to bursting from their sockets, and were turned with pain until hardly any thing but the whites could be seen. It was evident that a terrible poison was s!owJy,*butsure]y, permeating the man’s whole system.The physician, after a careful examination of the unwilling patient, cut open his skin from almost the center of his nose to the roots of his hair, and then made another cut across the forehead, almost from temple to temple. From these incisions there ouzed a mass of loathsome, detestable putrescence, so terrible in its stench that the attendants, save one, ran from the house. Other incisions were made in different parts of the scalp, from which the hair had been shaved, and from there this terribly offensive matter oozed constantly, until the swelling was reduced and the head and face assumed nearly their nominal size. Attempts were then made to fi\ e the incisions of ma; ter by injecting water into them. It was noticed that when water was forced into the cut in the forehead it poured out of the holes in the scalp. As one of the attendants said, “it seemed as if all the flesh between the skin and bone had turned to corruption and ran out.”When Truesdaie was told t’_at he could not possibly recover, he called his wife into the room and confessed to her that he robbed the Platts girl's grave, and referred to a certain night when he left the house and refused to tell her where he went as the time when he committed the crime. He said he dug down to the head of the coffin, broke ill open, and taking his knife cut around the neck of the corpse through the flesh to tin bone. He then placed one of his feet on the breast of the corpse and taking the head in his hands pulled and jerked and twisted ii until it came off by mere force. He afterward disjointed the lower jaw and threw ii where Fred Aur found it. He closed his confession by telling where the skull would be found, under the straw in a certain mangei in the stable. It was found there and given up to the Platts family.The last three days of Truesdale’s existence were terrible, not only to himself but to those who watched him. The poison from some corpse (for it is believed he had recently opened several graves), which was communicated to his system by pricking a raw [spot on the inside of the nose, appeared to course through every vein in bis body. Noi only was his person offensive to the eye, but the odor and heat of his breath was so offensive that it was impossible for$the attendants to wait on him properly. The breath was so poisonous that when one of the attendants held his hand six inches from the dying man’s mouth it stung the flesh like hundreds of nettles. Those who waited upon him were obliged to wear gloves, as it was impossible to wash the odor from their hands. The day he died his flesh was bo rotten that it seemed as if it wouid drop from the bones if touched, and his eyes actually decayed until they became sightless.For two days before his death a coffin bad been in readiness, and the orders of the physician were to place him in it as soon as the breath left his body, and get him under ground immediately. After his death none of the attendants had the temerity to toncb the corpse for fear of being poisoned, so they gathered the sheets on which the body lay at each end, and thus lifted it into the coffin. The lid was quickly screwed down, but before a wagon could be procured the body swelled and burst it off. It was then strapped on, but when the coffin was taken from the wagon at the graveyard, just at daylight, it again flew off, and the body appeared to swell visibly before the horrified attendants’eyes. The fetid, noisome stench from the putrid mass within was such that no one could attempt to replace the cover, and the coffin was covered from sight as hurriedly as possible.The day after the funeral—or burial, rather—the wife of Truesdaie was confined at a neighbor’s house, the fifth child also being a girl. The Truesdaie house will not be fit to occupy for several days, as all efforts tofumigate it thus far have failed. The doors and windows have been left open day and night, but the stench is still as bad as when he died. As one of the attendants said, “it still seems as if you could cut the air in that house with a kife.”ANSWER THIS,Did you ever know any person to be ill, without inaction of the Stomach, Liver or Kidneys, or did you ever know one who was well when either was obstructed or inactive; and did you ever know or hear of any case of the kind that Hop Bitters would not cure? Ask your neighbor this ssme question.—
Newspaper Details
Indianapolis People
Indianapolis, Indiana, US
Sat, Mar 27, 1880
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Elkhart P.
IN, USA 11 Sep 2020
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