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Contributed by barbara-dave
Description: C&O Canal Death Page 2
Newspaper published in: Washington, D. C.
Page/Column: 2
Washington Post May 4,1914 C&O Canal Death Page 2
Police Think Aged Man May Have Been Pushed In.
RIDICULE SUICIDE THEORY
Virginia Farmer Had Been to Washington to Make Purchases for Sunday and Was Returning on Towpath - Men Who Saw Him Say They Lost Sight of Him Just Before Hearing Splash.
Police are trying to ascertain if Fred BEACH, 67, whose body was recovered from the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Saturday night, fell from the bank into the water, mistaking his footing in the darkness, or whether, while walking along the towpath, he was accosted by an assailant and shoved in.
The names of witnesses are being collected by the police, and these witnesses will be summoned to testify at a coroner's inquest at the morgue this morning.
Seen by Two Men.
Two men say they saw BEACH walking along the canal bank about 11 o'clock that night. BEACH was several hundred feet ahead of them, and they could not distinguish him very well. They paid no attention to the man, they said, until they heard a splash.
Looking again they saw the man was gone. They rushed to the canal bank and saw a hat floating on the surface of the water. An hour later the body was recovered. BEACH was a farmer who lived on the Virginia side a mile above the Aqueduct bridge.
The police ridicule the theory of suicide. BEACH, they learned, had visited Washington Saturday and had made some purchases for a Sunday dinner. The officers found nothing to indicate any motive for suicide.