106 Years Ago
The October 23, 1919 Colorado Transcript told a gruesome tale. Two ranch hands were riding in Coal Creek Canyon when a human skull rolled across the trail in front of them. Looking up, they spotted a headless body seated in a pine tree overhead.
The coroner was summoned. With considerable difficulty, he removed the body from the tree and brought it back to Golden. He concluded that death had been caused by suicide. There was a rope in the tree, and the man had evidently tied one end to a branch and the other around his neck, then jumped to his death. When the head eventually detached, the body dropped and caught in a fork of the tree: that’s how he came to rest in a sitting position.
Based on the state of the teeth and hair, the coroner believed the man to have been 55-60 years old. He was dressed in heavy winter clothing and gloves, so the coroner speculated that he had been in the tree since the previous winter. There was no identification, but the man was carrying a silver watch.
Within a few days, they tracked down the man’s widow in Denver. She identified her husband by his clothing and watch. She said he had been unemployed and “despondent.” He had left home to look for work on the 9th of April and had not returned.
