Coos County OR Archives News.....SKELETON RECALLS MURDER 1930 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Donell Scheirman d_frazier40@yahoo.com October 9, 2010, 11:56 pm Coquille Valley Sentinel 1930 Coquille Valley Sentinel Friday, April 25, 1930 SKELETON RECALLS MURDER __________ Remains of Man found 2 Miles Northwest of Coquille Wednesday Brings to mind the Murder of Eudaily by Landis Back in 1901. The finding of the skeleton of a man, about 1,000 yards back from the Marshfield highway, just this side of where the big slide occurred a few years ago, by Morris and Ruth Stonecypher and Mrs. Peal Wimer, Wednesday morning, has recalled a murder back in the spring of 1901, when a man named Eudaily was shot by another-Landis-and late developments make it altogether probable that the skeleton is that of Landis, who must have committed suicide some eight or ten years after the murder. The young people were out peeling chittim and Morris, who is 16, attempted to jump up on a huge log. He fell back and in kicking ferns and brush aside, revealed the skeleton. All flesh was long since gone, but the bones still had the position of a man lying on his back. Sheriff Hess was at once notified and proceeded to the spot, where after removing the accumulation of years, the bones could be gathered up. In the right hand, or rather with the forefinger crooked around the trigger, and inside the guard, was a .32 small, cheap revolver, so rusted that it took filing to break. One shell had been exploded, the other four chambers still being loaded. Yesterday the bullet was shaken from the skull and was found to be from a .32 shell, making the suicide theory practically certain. A hole in the forehead and another in the rear side where the bullet had broken but not passed through the skull, showed what caused the death. A root, more than one-half inch in diameter had grown around a safety pin, fixing the date of his death at many years ago, possibly 15 or 20. The clothing was not entirely rotted, enabling the sheriff to determine that the man had worn a black shirt, with a soft hat lying near, with bullet hole in brim and upper portion. The shoes were in fairly good shape, except the upper which had rotted away. Among the effects collected were a pair of glasses, cuff holders, a pipe, $11.65 in coins, and the remains of a pocketbook on which was still legible the gold lettering, "Compliments of the Cambridge Iron & Steel Co., Cambridge, Ohio." A key was also found which belonged to the old Little Hotel here in Coquille. The pieces of money were a $5 gold piece, three silver dollars, six half dollars and 65 cents in small coins. The latest date decipherable on any of the coins were "1908," making it positive that the suicide did not occur for some eight or ten years after Eudaily's death. In the skull were two gold teeth and a pivot from which a tooth had been lost, and this, Jas. T. Jenkins, who knew Landis well, says corresponds with his observance of Landis' teeth. The finding of Eudaily's body, back in 1901, was made by Grover and Robert McQuigg, who lived above the present highway, back from the stock corral at Cedar Point. Landis, who it was later surmised, had murdered a number of men who came here to look over timber claims and who were never seen again after going into the woods with him, came to this section as an itinerant stove peddler. He had a specially built wagon, drawn by mules, on which he loaded a number of Home Comfort steel ranges and canvassed all parts of Oregon. Wm. Zosel remembers seeing him in Polk county. Landis had been walking over from Isthmus Slough with Eudaily, and learning that the latter was stopping in Beaver Hill to draw his mony, preparatory to going east, Landis waited in the willows along the railroad track below Cedar Point, bending twigs and branches aside to give him a clear vision of his victim. After shooting and robbing him he buried the body and was seen by the McQuigg boys who were hunting their cows. They laid low till Landis left and then went to see what he had been doing. When they uncovered a human foot they came into Coquille to report. The body was uncovered and brought to town by Sheriff Steve Gallier, and it was being viewed in a shack which stood west of the present laundry, Landis came in with the rest. He was identified by the McQuigg boys as the one they saw at the grave. There are varying stories as to how Landis was allowed to escape, but he was given sufficient time to go to the Little Hotel, followed by a man set to watch him. The Little Hotel stood about where the Penney store is now. Landis came out, joked with the watchman, entered the livery barn where Gould's store is now located, left by the rear and was never seen again, except by Peter Johnson who saw him near the present Masonic Cemetery. The late Hark Dunham reported that he saw Landis once in Alaska, and some seven or eight years after the murder, C.A. Gage, who was then deputy sheriff, received a letter asking if Landis was wanted here. Some time later he received another letter of inquiry in the same handwriting, and checking up on Landis' writing on the hotel register, found that the letters were probably written by the murderer. He was reported as being seen in various parts of the country, but investigation never proved that he was the man seen. He wore a Vandyke beard, and according to those who knew him 30 years ago, was a man who stood out above the average. He was a constant church attendant at the time he made a prolonged stay in Coquille and was above suspicion until he pulled the boner of being seen at his nefarious work. J.J. Stanley, who knew him well, says that Landis would take long walks in the morning and frequently stopped to chat with him at the Burns ranch where Mr. Stanley then lived. S.M. Nosler this morning brought to the Sentinel an article expressing doubt that the skeleton found this week was that of Landis, because of the fact that Eudaily's murder occurred in 1901, and the gruesome find of this week, could not have been lying on the hill for a longer time than from since 1908 to 1910. but it is a proven fact that a criminal, uncaught, will at some time revisit the scene of his crimes, and probably Landis slipped into this section about the time he wrote Sheriff Gage, but whether it was remorse or what that caused him to take his life will never be known. It may be that the skeleton was not that of Landis, but the key and pocketbook make that contention tenable. The Sentinel regrets that it is unable, on account of lack of time, to publish Mr. Nosler's letter. When Landis returned on several occasions from accompanying timber buyers into the woods, he would unfailingly pay the absent man's board bill, giving a smooth-sounding story that he had gone down the coast. After a lapse of nearly 30 years it is not strange that the stories of how Landis escaped are at variance. One has it that Sheriff Gallier had him in charge but was told by the justice of the peace that he could not arrest him without a warrant. Still another is that he was unmolested after viewing the corpse of Eudaily and slipped from the building when the McQuigg boys pointed him out as the man they saw. The skull and effects of the long deceased are being held in the sheriff's office. An inquest by Coroner Russell Keizer was held Wednesday. Dr. Keizer said the man was probably about 35 years of age, when he died, but Mr. Stanley says Landis was between 35 and 40 when he knew him in 1900-1901. Conjecture and recounting of those days in 1901 will never reveal whether the bones found this week were those of Landis, but the theory of suicide is pretty well established by the finding of the bullet. Another fact pointing to Landis as the suicide is that one eye was larger than the other. The openings in the skull found also show this disparity in size. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/or/coos/newspapers/skeleton378gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/orfiles/ File size: 8.3 Kb