Murder or Accident?

This clipping was shared with me by my good friend & fellow genealogist, Jim Cox, down in Indiana.  According to Jim this is one of Ft Wayne's earliest and still unsolved "mysteries".   What do you think?

Journal-Gazette (Ft. Wayne, Indiana)

 August 30, 1905

 Plunged to Death from Clinton Street Bridge 

Mrs. Mollie Lyons Killed and Siegmund Gieseler Fatally Hurt – Foul Play Is Suspected.

Mrs. Mollie Lyons, forty-one years of age, and housekeeper at the Star Hotel, was crushed to death, and Sigmund Gieseler, a cigar maker at the Cooney Bayer Factory, was probably fatally injured in a fall about  11 o’clock last night over the St. Mary’s River Bridge on Clinton Street.

The terrible tragedy was without doubt due to the giving away of a portion of the railing against which the two persons were leaning.  The woman’s death was caused by a fracture of the skull, just above

 the right temple, her head being split open by contact with a jagged rock in the bed of the river, near the middle abatement.  She lived for about three quarters of an hour after the accident, but never regained consciousness. The body was removed to the Klaehn and Melching undertaking establishment.

 ***A new phase of the Clinton Street mystery developed early this morning.  The police were informed that the woman wore a watch and chain during the evening and a search by the officers failed to reveal the missing jewelry.   This fact leads to a belief that the couple may have been pitched over

 the bridge by robbers and the statement made by Gieseler being “put there” and his appear for help strengthens this theory.  A fifty-cent piece was picked up by the officers under the bridge.