January 8, 1909
DEATH PACT IN
DOUBLE KILLING?
BODIES OF MAN AND WOMAN
FOUND IN ROOM.
POISON PROBABLY WAS USED.
NO SIGNS OF VIOLENCE, BUT
MARKED FACIAL CONTORTION.
J. W. Brault and Mrs. Julia
Kenner in Their Troost
Avenue Apartment.
With no external evidence as to how or why they came to their end, J. W. Brault and Mrs. Julia Kenner were found dead in a room at 1517 Troost avenue at 2 o'clock yesterday afternoon. Whether it was a suicide pact between the man and Mrs. Kenner, who may be his wife, or a murder and a suicide, the police are unable to say. The woman was a baking powder demonstrator and about 38 years old. The man at one time was an agent for crayon pictures. He looked to be 45 years old. The couple evidently died yesterday morning.
They had been doing light housekeeping and when Mrs. Mary Kimmons, who conducts the apartment house where the two roomed, failed to detect the usual odor of cooking food at noon yesterday she sent W. F. Gray, who, with his wife, lives in the apartment house, to investigate. Gray found the door locked. He climbed up and looked over the transom. He saw the two bodies lying on the bed. That of the man was on its back; that of the woman was lying across him, the hands clasped as if in agony, the face contorted.
MAN DIED FIRST.
The police and coroner were united. Two detectives and Deputy Coroner Harry Czarlinsky broke in the door. From the position of the bodies, the detectives were led to believe that the man died first. There were no marks of violence on either body. Poison probably caused the death of both, but only a postmortem examination, which will be made this morning, will establish the fact.
When Mr. Gray looked over the transom, he said he smelled chloroform, but no trace of the drug was found. There was a small vial of laudanum on the dresser, but Dr. Czarlinsky said that there was no evidence of laudanum poisoning.
Mrs. Gray, wife of the man who made the discovery, said that about 3 o'clock yesterday morning she heard Mrs. Kenner rush across the floor screaming "Help," and "Lord have mercy!" She paid little attention to the cries then, as she and Mr. Gray had often heard the couple quarreling. However, she told Mrs. Kimmons of it just before noon.
The dead man and woman came to the apartment house a week ago and registered as man and wife.
SAID THEY WERE MARRIED.
Many letters addressed to Mrs. Julia Kenner were found, but there was only one that might have belonged to Brault. This one was to the Egg Baking Powder Company of New York and applied for a position as agent. It set forth that Brault had married Mrs. Kenner, alluded to as "one of the company's best demonstrators." It was evidently a copy of a letter Brault had sent to the company.
In the meagerly furnished room was a bed, a center table on which was a pan of biscuits,, a dressing table crowded with bottles of various descriptions, and a trunk, the property of Mrs. Kenner. On top of some articles of woman's wear in the trunk was a telegram addressed to "Mrs. Kenner, 132 West Court street, Cincinnati, O." It read:
"Letter mailed today. Am well. Lots of love. -- Your Harry."
The searchers could find no other indication that a man whose first name was Harry had ever written the woman. Another letter from the Egg Baking Powder Company of New York was addressed to the woman at 1512 Biddle street, St. Louis.
NO LACK OF MONEY.
The theory the police first entertained was that lack of money had brought on despondency which had occasioned the double tragedy. This was given up when a certificate of deposit for $50 on the Exchange Bank of Kansas City was discovered in the trunk.
Dr. Harry Czarlinsky, the assistant coroner, said last night he was entirely at sea as to the method used in bringing death to the couple. He was sure neither gas nor chloroform was used.
"My opinion is that the woman killed the man and the in her desperation put an end to herself," said he. "From the appearance of the room and of the bodies I do not consider it possible that some one could have entered the room and murdered the couple."
That was also the opinion of Lieutenant W. J. Carroll of No. 6 police station, to whom the tragedy was first reported.
The bodies were ordered taken to the Leo J. Stewart undertaking establishment.
Labels: death, detectives, Dr Czarlinsky, New York, No 6 police station, St Louis, Suicide, telegram, Troost avenue, undertakers
