NEWS: Prison Bride is Murder Suspect of Michael C. WALTZ, 1931, of interest in 
Cambria County and Somerset County, PA

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Meyersdale Library.
Transcribed and proofread by: Richard Boyer.

Copyright 2012.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
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MICHAEL C. WALTZ

Prison Bride is Murder Suspect
Aged Man Who First Met His Wife in Jail is Murdered Near Cresson

  The body of Michael C. Waltz, aged 70, of Cresson, a retired carpenter reputed 
to be wealthy, was found last Sunday propped up under an apple tree a half-mile 
east of Cresson, near the Summit Country Club.  Police expressed the belief he 
was murdered.
  His widow, described as being 30 years his junior, was taken in custody for 
questioning.  Held with her were her daughter by a former marriage and a 
grandson.
  When found by an artist who had wandered to the spot to paint, the body of 
Waltz was seated beneath an apple tree with a rope under the chin.  The rope, 
fastened to a limb of the tree, was used to hold up the head so as to give the 
impression that the man was alive and merely sleeping.  In an outer pocket of 
Waltz' clothes was found a pistol, from which one shot had been fired.  A 
bullet, evidently from close range, had gone through the man's head.
  Waltz went to the jail in Johnstown early this summer to visit friends, and 
there met his bride-to-be who was serving a sentence for violation of the 
prohibition laws.  They were married July 1.  The marriage was his second and 
her third.
  Waltz was last seen by neighbors at 10 o'clock Saturday night.  The body was 
found at 1 p.m., Sunday.

Meyersdale Republican, July 23, 1931