CHILD GIVES ONLY CLUE TO MURDER MYSTERY

The Princeton Post Princeton Mo. Thu Sep 28 1911 page 1

Harrison County Officals Have Little to Work on in Finding the Slayer of Mrs. Jasper E. Shirley. - Suspects Prove their Innocence and are Released. Bloodhounds fail to Pick up Trail.

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a special to The Post from the Bethany Clipper, just before going to press, states that Judge Wanamaker has called a grand jury for circuit court which begins there October 9th., to inquire into the facts of the murder of Mrs. Shirley.

With the only clue, given by the two yeare old daughter, that the murderer of Mrs. Jasper E. Shirley at her home nine miles south of Mt. Moriah, a week ago, is a big fat man, the Harrison county officials have little to work on and it seems that the brutal murder will remain a mystery. They are now searching for a big man with scratches on his face and hands, as blood spots on the floor of the house give evidence that the woman's assailant was injured in the fight. No one in the neighborhood, so far found, has these marks.

Several clues have been picked up and run down by the officers, only to end in nothing, and now it is believed they are completely at sea. Bloodhounds were brought there from Beatrice, Nebraska, but the trail was so cold that it could not be picked up. All the people are anxious to find the murderer and bring him to justice, but they know not which way to turn nor where to look. It seems that this must go down in history as one of the great crimes unsolved.

Bunk Davidson, a cousin of the murdered woman, a close neighbor and who is a big man, after being held two days and closely questioned by the officers, was released Friday. He was in a pasture near the Shirley home on the afternoon of the murder, it is said, but his presence there was satisfactorily explained. Another man, reported under suspicion because his face was bruised, proved an alibi by showing that his injuries were received in riding a wild horse.

The affair, so shrouded in mystery, is a peculiarly sad one, as the victim was a woman highly respected in the neighborhood where she lived, was twenty-seven years old and mother of four children ranging in age from two years up to nine.

At the home, made sad and desolate by the act of some low, brutal miscreant, there was a pitable sight. The wife and mother lying cold in death, the good neighbors gathered around with tear-stained cheeks, the four motherless little children nestling close to the distracted husband and father whose frame quivered with the pent up emotion of his awful sorrow, made a gloom which the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows and across the casket could not dispel.

When the casket was placed in a spring wagon to convey the body to the little cemetery only about a half mile away, it seemed that the poor distracted and bewildered companion's heart would break. The children, barely old enough to realize the meaning, huddled close to the father, and the little girl who witnessed the crime, not knowing that her mother was forever gone, put her arms about the father's neck. "Mamma is sleeping," she said.

The crime, which was committed Sunday a week ago, is one of the worst in the history of this country. Mrs. Shirley and her two year old daughter were left alone at the farm house that day while Mr. Shirley and the three boys went to a neighboring farm. When they returned late that evening they found the house locked. Gaining entrance through a window, they found teh wife and mother lying on the floor, cold in death. The little child was in the house with the corpse. The lady had been attacked by a man during the husband's absence, and her neck was broken.

A complete report of the coroner's inquest will be found on page 3 of The Post.