Lineville is as far south as one can get in Iowa. Drive over the Wayne-Mercer county line and you're in South Lineville, Missouri. While there's not much left of either village these days, once upon a time, both flourished.
Back in late February 1866, a murder occurred less than a mile outside town. Reported upon initially in The Corydon Monitor of March 8, the details were so sensational that the Monitor report was picked up and republished at full length nationwide as March progressed.
Most of these reports carried the same headline, "A New Parkman Horror." That was a reference to a sensational murder in Boston 17 years earlier. In that case, prominent Boston businessman George Parkman disappeared during November of 1849. Eventually his dismembered and partially burned remains were found in the Harvard Medical College laboratory of Dr. John Webster. Indicted in January 1850, Webster was found guilty in March and hanged in August.
No copies of 1866 Corydon Monitors have survived. The following reprint of the Monitor story was published in The Leavenworth (Kansas) Times of March 24:
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A NEW PARKMAN HORROR
Atrocious Murder in Wayne County, Iowa --- The Remains of the Victim Burned to Ashes in his own Fireplace.
LINEVILLE, WAYNE CO., IOWA, March 2: One of those cool, brutal murders, the bare recital of which makes the blood run cold, has just thrown this community into the greatest excitement, a brief synopsis of which, with your permission, I propose to lay before your readers.
It appears that a German by the name of George Klider, living about three-fourths of a mile from this place, on a farm belonging to Mr. T.H.P. Duncan, of Ottumwa, has been missing since the night of February 22d. Mr. K. was a single man, about thirty years of age, and lived alone, the house in which he lived being about half a mile back from the road, and about the same distance from any other dwelling.
From the subsequent conduct and contradictory statements of a German neighbor by the name of William Hoogman, the people here were led to suppose that Klider had met with foul play, and arrested Hoogman as the murderer. Upon being questioned as to the whereabouts of the missing man, the prisoner fainted but upon recovering stated that Klider had gone to Trenton, Mo., and left his property in his (Hoogman's) charge until his return.
The arresting party then proceeded to examine Klider's house. Large spots of blood were found on the floor and walls of his room, the whole premises emitting the most sickening odor; large quantities of human bones were found in the smoldering ashes of the fireplace. The lower jaw was but little disfigured. Large pieces of the skull, together with pieces of human flesh, were dug out of the ashes; a portion of the former showed an incision as if the body had been chopped in pieces with an ax preparatory to burning. The most of the bones, however, had been pounded to pieces. Portions of the murdered man's saddle were found in the ashes, burned, probably to substantiate the story that he had gone away on horseback.
Upon examination before Judge Snyder and Esquire Alley, the following facts in relation to the prisoner Hoogman were elicited:
That he left home on the evening of February 22d, about five o'clock, and did not return until after sunrise the next morning; and that he failed to give any satisfactory reason to his wife's inquiry as to his night's absence. That he was engaged during the entire day of the 23rd of February in removing the missing man's effects to his own house, telling his wife that Klider was coming to live with them on his return. That on the 24th he went to Princeton, Mo., and traded off a horse belonging to Klider, which he had concealed since his disappearance. That he offered to sell a note of Klider's for $250, on Mr. J. L. Sullivan, of this place, but on account of some crooked statements he made in relation to the note, failed to dispose of it, and the note, together with the pocketbook, pocket-knife, and other trinkets, identified as the property of the murdered man, were found on the prisoner's person at the time of his arrest.
The murderer must have been engaged in his devilish work of burning the remains during the entire night of February 22d.
It was with the utmost difficulty that the citizens could be restrained from wreaking summary vengeance on the prisoner. He is a large, muscular man, about thirty-five years old, with a brutal countenance, which you can scan in vain for a single indication of the finer feelings of humanity. He is now in jail in Princeton, Mo., awaiting trial. The only motive for the hellish act appears to be that of gain. Corydon (Iowa) Monitor, 8th.
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The same report of the murder had been published in The Ottumwa Semi-Weekly Courier earlier in March and that resulted in the following follow-up from a correspondent who signed off as "Rosicler," published on March 22nd. This, too, was picked up and republished, but failed to gain the traction of the original report.
Ottumwa, March 15th
MR. EDITOR --- Since the publication of your Wednesday's issue, the most shocking and lamentable case of suicide has been brought to light; as a sad consequence of the homicide committed near Lineville, Mo., the details of which have been published.
In narrating this sad event, for the readers of your paper, I shall endeavor as near as possible, from the facts I have gathered from statements given me, to give the chain of circumstances connected with the sad and untimely end of these unfortunate individuals:
It seems that Mrs. Klider, wife of the brother of the murdered man, had --- some time previous to the death of her brother-in-law --- refused to let him live with them as he had formerly done, on account of some little difficulty or misunderstanding between them, in consequence of which he was compelled to seek a shelter for himself, which he found on one of the farms owned by Mr. Duncan, a well known citizen of this place, and while living there alone, in an isolated state of existence, cut off from the associations of his near friends, the hand of some foul assassin, at a late hour of the night, struck him a most deadly and fatal blow, depriving him of life.
When the murder was discovered, and the news make known to his friends, Mrs. Klider deeming herself the cause of his death by her unsisterly conduct toward him, was a few days since missing and on search being made was found dead at a pool of water on which was a coat of ice. Her body was found lying on the ice, with her head in the water, which was some ten feet in depth.
The integument of her forehead was much bruised, and it is supposed that in the madness and grief and agony of mind, she struck her head upon the ice until it yielded to its influence, and by immersing her head in the hole, thus made and stoutly holding it there, strangulation and death ensued --- launching her soul into eternity. (signed) Rosicler
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And that's where the story ends, for the time being at least. I was unable to find further reports that might tell us of the accused killer's outcome. In fact, I was unable to find record of anyone named Klider or Hoogman in the Lineville vicinity.
The latter would not be surprising --- reporters of the era rarely allowed correct spelling to get in the way of a good story.
But it is mildly surprising that a murder so sensational seems to have vanished almost entirely from collective memory.
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