The coroner’s inquest into the mysterious death of Henry Toggenbarger began amidst a screed of gossip.
The testimony revealed contradictions, omissions, some very strange information, and an even more interesting verdict. For example, many witnesses were not examined. Nellie Jackson, the young woman thought to have been courted by Toggenbarger, was not mentioned at the inquest, nor was she called to testify. This is especially interesting since she had been at the Atlantic Hotel and had told police that she had discovered his body.
Instead, Mrs. Lou Harris, a woman from Clinton who had arrived at the Atlantic Hotel two-to-three days before Toggenbarger had died, testified that she had found the body.
Harris also testified that she had seen Toggenbarger in the yard of the hotel talking to a “strange man.” None of the other hotel guests noticed this; although they saw Toggenbarger in the yard that day, they told the coroner that he did not speak to anyone.
Dr. Boyer testified that a man came to his office Tuesday and purchased purgative pills and came again on Thursday and purchased quinine pills. Dr. Boyer believed the man had “some fever” and “that his mind was not sound.” Boyer was not cross examined, so the nature of his diagnosis was not explained. No questions were asked about who the man might have been. Boyer, according to other articles about his activities, had a less than stellar reputation. Why he was called to testify remains a mystery, as does the identity of the man who purchased the pills.
Those who saw the scene of the crime were certain Toggenbarger had been murdered. The Coroner’s Jury, made up of J. W. Walker, B. G. Blair, Hick Fitzgerald, A. Gardella, Thomas D. Quinn, and E. E. Johnson, “good and lawful men, householders of the township,” rendered an inexplicable verdict. The jury decided Toggenbarger had committed suicide. He had, they believed, hit himself on the back of the head with a hatchet, stabbed the back of his neck with a knife, and stuffed a handkerchief down his throat the cause strangulation.
Coroner Overstreet asked that the body not be buried until further investigation could be done, but the undertaker buried the body anyhow. The next day, Overstreet received a telegram from Toggenbarger’s brother John saying he would arrive in Sedalia that day and take his brother’s body home.
The body was exhumed immediately and taken to McLaughlin’s where it was put on ice. When John Toggenbarger arrived, he went immediately to McLaughlin’s. The Bazoo reporter who met him asked whether his brother might have committed suicide. John was certain that he had not.
The undertaker explained that the hatchet cuts had pierced the skull and exposed the brain. The stab wounds to the neck had pierced the throat. Suicide was not indicated by the wounds. John left for the family home, accompanied by his brother’s remains.
Lou Harris “skipped out” and returned to Clinton.
The Bazoo criticized the investigation, noting it was “sad and unfortunate” that the matter was not thoroughly investigated so the manner of Toggenbarger’s death would have been made clear to the public.
