Early News

Rochester Daily Union and Advertiser
Rochester, Monroe County, New York
MAY 26, 1900

PAGE 3
SUICIDE OF A PRIEST.
Man Believed to be Rev. J.J. O'DONNELL Leaps Into Niagara River.
   NIAGARA FALLS, May 26. — A priest of the Roman Catholic church, believed to be the Rev. John J. O'DONNELL, committed suicide yesterday by jumping into the whirlpool rapids.
   The priest entered a bazaar between the steel arch and the cantilever railroad bridges on the American side and asked one of the clerks where he could get a good view of the rapids. He was advised to go down the elevator to the edge of the water, but he preferred a view from above, and was directed to the steel arch bridge. He looked at the rapids about fifteen minutes, when he returned and went down the elevator.
   In a photograph gallery the priest was asked by Frank A. DITTRICK for a sitting. He said he was not prepared to pay for pictures, but would sit if the artist would send three pictures, with a bill, to M.J. O'DONNELL, No. 210 West Fifty-second street, New York. He refused to give his name. After sitting he went to the platform and viewed the rapids.
   Mr. DITTRICK and Miss BEERCROFT, an assistant saw the priest standing on a rock which juts into the water from under the platform. Mr. DITTRICK called to him to come back, but he threw his hat and cane upon the platform, raised his right hand, shouted "Good-bye!" and jumped into the rapids. His head could be seen above the water for 200 feet down the rapids, and then he was lost to sight.
   The man was in the dress of a priest. He was rather dark, 45 to 50 years old, and weighed about 200 pounds and was finely proportioned. His hat was a derby and the cane was of varnished maple with black spots at intervals.
   A dispatch from New York says: "There seems to be little doubt that the man who committed suicide at Niagara Falls is Rev. John J. O'DONNELL, formerly an assistant in the Sacred Heart Church in West Fifty-second street, this city, and a brother of M.J. O'DONNELL of No. 302 West Fifty-second street.
   "Father O'DONNELL developed a form of religious mania about two years ago and was sent to the Providence Retreat ---- (didn't get rest of article)

MAY 26, 1900
PAGE 9

GEORGE J. HETZLER.
Funeral Held from St. Joseph's Church This Morning.
   The funeral of George J. HETZLER was held from the family residence on Osprey street at 8:15 o'clock this morning and at 9 o'clock from St. Joseph's Church. The services at the church were largely attended. Solemn requiem mass was celebrated by Rev. T. OLERT (?). The floral offerings were numerous and beautiful.
   The following acted as bearers: Anthony KNAPE, Vincent MEHHAUFER, Herman EBING, Jacob FL?CHENMIER and Joseph A. KAUFMAN. Interment was made at the Holy Sepulcher cemetery.

Announcements.
— The funeral of Edward WEBSTER will be held from the Brick Presbyterian Church at 3 o'clock Monday afternoon.

— The funeral of Henry STETZENMEYER will be held from the family residence No. 89 Bartlett street at 2 o'clock to-morrow afternoon.

— The funeral of George C. TUCKER was held from the family residence, No. 408(?) Main street, east, at 2:30 o'clock to-morrow.

-- John CARRIER died last evening at the family residence, No. 17 Woodward street, aged 38 years. Deceased is survived by his wife and nine children.

— The funeral of Mrs. Bridget O'CONNOR was held from the family residence, No. 20 Lime street, at 8:30 o'clock this morning and at 9 o'clock from the Holy Apostles' Church.

PRATT ESTATE.
Widow Named as Executrix of Will and Principal Beneficiary.
   Letters testamentary upon the estate of Luther A. PRATT, who died on May ?8th, were granted this morning to Hannah PRATT, widow of the testator. The testator left a will made on November 3, 1888, to which was added a codicil on April 1, 1899.
   By the terms of the will and codicil the widow receives $16,000 of an estate consisting of $17,000 in personality, and the remainder goes to the testator's son.

MARY J. DRAPER'S ESTATE.
Son is Named as Executor by her Will, Admitted to Probate, To-Day.
Charles D. SEELY was to-day named as executor of the will of Mary J. DRAPER, who died on April 30th, leaving an estate valued at $1,900 in personalty. The executor is a son of the testatrix.
   By the terms of the will $400 goes to Paul DRAPER, husband of the testatrix and the remainder goes to the son, who is named as executor.

FANNY BRUNSWICK'S WILL.
Instrument Admitted to Probate This Morning by the Surrogate.
   The will of Fanny BRUNSWICK was admitted to probate by Surrogate BENTON this morning. The estate consists of $4,000 in realty and $1 in personalty.
   By the terms of the will made on May 23, 1891, Edward BRUNSWICK, Minna BRUNSWICK and Yetta BRUNSWICK are named as executors of the instrument, and the property is divided between Minna and Yetta BRUNSWICK. Rosa NEWMAN and Carrie STEIFEL (?), daughters of the testatrix, receive one dollar each.

ADMITTED TO PROBATE.
Surrogate BENTON Passes Upon Will of Elijah DEFENDORF.
   Surrogate BENTON this morning admitted to probate the will of Elijah DEFENDORF, who died in June, 1898, leaving a will made the 2?the day of June, 1882, in which his widow, Harriet M. DEFENDORF is named as executrix.
By the terms of the will the widow is to have the life use of the estate which consists of $3,000 in realty and $300 in personalty and at her death her children will divide the property.

MAY 26, 1900
PAGE 10

HOPELESS LOVE CAUSES TRAGEDY
The Murder of Mrs. FOSTER, Formerly of Rochester, in Syracuse.
She Had Arranged With Her Murderer to Die With Him.
He Killed Her, but When It Came to Taking His Own Life His Nerve Failed.

   The FOSTER tragedy in Syracuse night before last, in which Mrs. Louis FOSTER, formerly of this city, figured as principal, her body having been found some hours after death in her rooms in the Collins block, in Syracuse, now turns out to have been a case in which hopeless love figured largely. The woman was the wife of Charles H. FOSTER, son of a prominent resident of this city. He formerly lived here and married his wife here. While here he was in trouble with the police several times. After his last arrest here he moved with his wife to Syracuse. She soon had him arrested for stealing her diamonds, and he was sent to Elmira Reformatory, where he now is. After he went to prison his wife took up with Ernest HECHT. The rest of her life history is told by the Syracuse papers as follows:
   "Louise FOSTER lies dead at McCarthy's morgue to-day because she loved Ernest HECHT and loved not her husband. She died by the hand of him she loved, died willingly , died smilingly, died in the confidence that whether in heaven or hell she would be joined at once by him in whom she trusted, beyond the reach of the husband she hated.
Ernest HECHT, the man, lives because he had not the courage to end his own life after he had taken the life of the woman he loved and who loved him. A double tragedy was planned. The woman inhaled greedily the chloroform fumes in fulfillment of her part of the contract. The man made a weak attempt at self- destruction, and lives from sheer cowardice. He feared the beyond she welcomed and frankly confesses it.
   Mrs. FOSTER came to George K. COLLINS a month ago in answer to an advertisement for rooms to rent. She lived a quiet, cheerful live in rooms in the Collins block in East Genesee street. Her rooms were a model of good housekeeping. She was young and pretty. She went out rarely and was agreeable and social to the people in the block. HECHT came a week ago in response to Mrs. HERTIG's advertisement for roomers. It was not known that they were friends, but their friendship soon became apparent. He went to her rooms continually.
   They had known each other two months. They loved each other. FOSTER, her husband, had forfeited all claim to her affection by his attempts to secure her property, by maltreatment of her. He was serving a term at Elmira at her complaint. She was satisfied that he was there. She dreaded the day when he should be freed again to torment her. The Austrian who loved her in his way, a man not capable of great affection perhaps, but an intelligent, nervous man, capable and ready to protect her, came into her life a month ago. To her he was an ideal. Her married life heretofore had been a failure. She longed for affection. She won it. And she gave to him a greater affection that he could give.
   Her husband was soon to be discharged from the Reformatory. He was coming back to Syracuse. She dreaded his coming. She wrote to HECHT to come to her, to die with her. Death with him was preferable to life with the man who had legal claim to her, while her husband lived. She proposed death, and HECHT accepted her proposition and wrote to his brother that he was to die in the arms of the only woman he ever loved. Whatever may be said of his weakness mentally that he acted in good faith, that he intended to fulfill his part of the agreement, that he met the proposition of death as calmly as she made it, is certain. He came to her. He came to die. He was brave as she at night. He was a coward when the deed was half done.
   She lay on the bed about midnight dressed for death. HECHT was to place her lace handkerchief, soaked in chloroform over her nostrils, and as her hands crossed on her breast she breathed the fumes. He crumpled the handkerchief over her nose and mouth and she died without a tremor, without a word, confidently, gladly.
   HECHT placed a red rose upon her breast. He looked at her and trembled. He threw the chloroformed handkerchief on the floor. The odor sickened him. His death by his hand was also to be by chloroform. As he looked at her, dead, courage forsook him. He could not use the means he had used for her. He sat in the chair by the bed, his head in his hands, stupefied. The quiet oppressed him. Rousing himself he took from a take some morphine pills Mrs. FOSTER had bought and finally swallowed some of them. Then he lay down beside her to die. He got up again sick. Half unconscious he lay down once more, but not to die. He rose to seek other means of death.
   "HECHT had carried with him a revolver to assure his own death. He took it from his pocket. It frightened him. He put it back to be brought again when a Central train went by. A train came in and the revolver was brought out once more, but not for use. HECHT put it back, dropped his head in his hands and waited by the side of the dead woman.
   "He waited until dawn. It would be so much easier for him to kill himself by daylight. But daylight came and still HECHT sat beside the woman, trembling because he lived, without the nerve to die. Maggie WILBER had been notified to call early to help Mrs. FOSTER break up for moving, as she was to leave Collins block on Monday, She tried the door as she had been told. It was locked. HECHT, haggard, nervous, opened it and returned to his seat.
   "‘Is she asleep?' asked Mrs. WILBER.
   "‘Come in', he said, ‘ and close the door.' And he pulled her into the room and closed it himself.
   "‘ Is she asleep?' she repeated, frightened.
   "‘ No, she's dead,' he said, as he dropped into the chair again. And the woman ran down the stairs and into G.K. COLLINS' office. A.C. COOK who has desk room in the office, was there. ‘She's dead,' cried Maggie. ‘Mrs. FOSTER has committed suicide.' COOK went to the room. He saw the woman was dead. HECHT sat undisturbed. COOK determined that the case was not one for him. He went direct to the police office and notified the police.
   "The police took HECHT to the police office and examined him. HECHT would say nothing. When the revolver was taken from him he said: ‘That's nothing. I wanted to use it I could couldn't I?' After an examination HECHT finally broke down, surrendered the letter which he had in his pocket, and which he had been told to burn, and confessed the whole story.
   "‘I did what she wished me to do, but I did not do all of it,' said HECHT to Detective Woods. That is all he would say at first. The revolver was taken from him. He seemed nervous. He kept saying, ‘I couldn't do.' ‘I hadn't the nerve.' ‘My nerve failed me.' The detectives fearing that he had taken poison and would need a physician, fearing ??? from his talk that he would try to kill himself, locked him up in one of the chief's cells with a big prisoner from another police cell.
   "He had half confessed before. He had said enough to tell the police that he had killed the woman or that both had agreed to kill themselves and she alone had done it. When his pockets were searched he nervously passed over letters which are printed below. Then he told it all, in the same disjoined way he had been talking.
   "‘We agreed to die,' he said. ‘We were to die together, I killed her. I gave her chloroform. My nerve failed me. I was to kill myself, but my nerve failed me. I tried to kill myself, but I couldn't. The letters explain it. The letters tell it all. And the
letters were never to be seen. They were to be destroyed. And there they are. They tell it.'
   "She had written him proposing suicide. Her proposition that they go away together was not accepted because he had no money. In her letter she says: ‘My darling, you thought me cruel, but I was kind. If I had done as you wished it would have been so much harder to have given it all up.'
   "She means by this that she may have been thought cruel for proposing death, inasmuch as flight together was found impracticable; and that her husband's return would mean the lovers' separation."
   The letter from Mrs. FOSTER to HECHT is as follows:
   When HECHT was searched by the police the mystery of the crime was cleared by the following letter:
   "My Sweetheart — This is my first and last love letter to you.
When you arrive here to- night I will be ready for you. I will be all your own until you are ready to keep your promise. Will ask but one thing of you: Do it well and quickly and if there is a hereafter I will wait for you. We will go hand and hand to meet whatever the beyond holds for us.
   "My darling, you thought me cruel, but I was kind. If I had done as you wished it would have been so much harder to have given it all up. I do not suffer. I have died a hundred deaths to day, but I am tired of the struggle. Fate is stronger than I.
   "Take me in your arms; hold me close to your warm loving heart until mine grows cold. Let your love be the last thing that I will realize in this world, so that I can take it with me into the next. Your lips take my last breath only to give it back when we meet agin, for meet we certainly will, be it in heaven or hell. I will go where you go.
   "I will write no more for now, as words are but empty sounds. Be brave, for I will. Destroy this letter, for we must leave nothing behind for the world to gloat over. My darling, I kiss you,    "Louise FOSTER."
   The police also found the following letter written in German by HECHT to his brother Leo at Maehr, Wei?sk?schen, Austria:
"Syracuse, N.Y., May 24th.
   "Dear Leo — Notify the rest of the family that after long deliberation I have come to the conclusion that I would be better off dead than living, and therefore died in the arms of the only woman I have ever loved. Forgive me all for I am tired of the struggle for existence. Live happy and blessed for all time. Earnest.
   "Break the news to mother as gently as possible. I now go to that bourne from which no traveler returns."
   The following from the Syracuse Herald tells how the murder was done:
   "It was a few minutes after 9 o'clock last night when HECHT called at Mrs. FOSTER's rooms. He carried a beautiful red rose, which he had bought at the florist's across the road. It was her favorite flower. A small catsup bottle containing three ounces of chloroform, which was to translate them into the unknown, stood on the bureau in her bedroom. This had been procured earlier in the afternoon. Near the chloroform was a bottle containing twenty-five one-eighth grain morphine pills. The rose and these agents of death were in a row.
   "HECHT and the woman talked together in the parlor for an hour or so and then she made ready to retire. She attired herself in the daintiest of lingerie and then laid herself out on the bed. They had agreed to use the chloroform first and if that failed then the morphine was to follow. She was to die first, and at his hands, HECHT took one of her lace hemmed handkerchiefs and crumpled it into a pad, such as is used in an ether cone.
   "The handkerchief pad was saturated with the chloroform and he placed it over her mouth and nostrils. She choked and gasped for a while but the drug soon overpowered her and she passed off into a dreamless sleep, never more to awaken. It was nearly 2 o'clock before death came to her. As she lay there with her hands folded across her bosom and the red rose caressing her neck, HECHT's purpose to take chloroform and make way with himself failed him. He reached for the morphine pills and swallowed a handful of them. They did not act as quickly as he thought they would. Life still held. When daylight
came he was still maintaining a vigil by her silent form. He was taken sick again and vomited on the floor. He recovered and waited for the discovery that was sure to come.
   The Syracuse Herald printed the following concerning the FOSTERS and the life they led in Syracuse before the man was sent to prison:
   "Louise FOSTER, the murdered woman, came to Syracuse from Rochester in the company of her husband, Charles H. FOSTER, in the later part of 18?7. The couple rented a house in the ------ (didn't get rest of article)

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