The death certificate indicates he died at the Midwest Hotel in Kansas City and that the cause of death was suicide.
The family back home in Illinois was convinced that he was robbed and murdered. Tradition has it that an inquest was held into his death when his body was returned to Illinois for burial.
My goal is to learn more about this inquest. There are several things I am going to do as a part of this search:
- Attempt to obtain coroner's records for Jackson County, Kansas, where the death took place.
- Attempt to obtain corner's records for Adams County, Illinois, where the body was sent to and where the burial took place.
- Attempt to locate newspaper accounts of this event in newspapers in the Kansas City, Missouri, area as well as in Quincy, Illinois (the Adams County, Illinois county seat) and Golden, Illinois (where the burial took place).
I'll keep you posted and suggestions are welcomed.
