Hendricks - Howard
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Friday, 20 June 1902
The sight that met the eyes of Simon Lynch when he went out to feed his hogs Wednesday morning was a most horrible one. Lying at the end of a lane was his nephew, Howard Hendricks. He was dead and his body had been partially eaten by the hogs which had access to the lane. A bullet hole squarely between the eyes and a new Smith & Wesson 32 caliber revolver by his side, explained the situation.
Howard Hendricks was the son of William Hendricks, of near Waynetown, but has worked for some time for a farmer named Patton, who is a near neighbor of Mr. Lynch, their farms being a little north of Stone Bluff, in Fountain County. He is about eighteen years old and only last Saturday evening he graduated from the Shawnee Township schools with the honors of his class. His mother is in the insane hospital at Indianapolis and to this fact is ascribed the only possible cause for the young man’s self destruction. About ten o’clock Tuesday night some of the neighbors heard a single shot, but thought nothing of it. The next morning the body of the unfortunate boy told them the effect of the shot.
His actions up to the time of the shooting were not such as to excite the suspicion that he contemplated the terrible deed, and his suicide caused a huge sensation in Waynetown where he was well known. The report was first circulated that the boy had been murdered, and there were rumors of a lynching among the country people, but the inquest held on Wednesday by Coroner Rice, of Wallace, showed the cause of the death to be suicide.
The body was brought to Waynetown and the funeral was held on Thursday at 2 o’clock, the interment being at the Masonic Cemetery west of Waynetown. - s