Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2024 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== Bloomington Weekly Leader Thursday, 11 July 1895 FAMILY KILLED BY GAS Entire Chicago Household is Smothered to Death. Chicago, July 6 - a family of six persons, consisting of FREDERICK HELLMAN, his wife and four children, were asphyxiated by gas in their home at 601 Cornelia street and their bodies were found by HELLMAN'S mother. The names of the victims were: FREDERICK HELLMAN, 36 years old; IDA HELLMAN, his wife, 34 years old; FRITZ HELLMAN, 12 years; IDA HELLMAN, 11 years, WILLIE HELLMAN, 8 years; HEDWIG HELLMAN, 4 years. The gas which brought death to the family escaped from a jet near the head of the bed occupied by HELLMAN and three of the children. This was found partly open when the neighbors crowded into the little sleeping apartment in response to aged MRS. HELL- MAN'S cries for help. It was evident that life had been extinct for some hours, and any effort at resuscitation would have been fruitless. The whole family slept in one small room only 6 by 8 feet in dimensions. The window was closed and the gas soon filled the lungs of the sleeping family and ended their lives. The records of the coroner's office dis- close no similar accident where an entire family of six perished in their sleep in a single night. The discovery of the tragedy was not made till rather late in the morn- ing. About 9:30 o'clock MRS. HELLMAN, mother of FREDERICK, called at her son's house, but to her great surprise found the doors closed and the window shades still drawn. She went to the rear of the house and the kitchen door yielded to her push. She entered the house, met a strong odor of gas and suspected at once that something was wrong. She went immediately to the family sleeping room, where she found her son and his family dead in their beds, while the fatal fluid still poured into the room from the half- opened gas jet. The odor in the stifling atmosphere of the room was suffocating, and it was with difficulty that MRS. HELLMAN maintained herself against it long enough to cross the apartment and find her way to pure air by raising the window. Soon the neighbors flocked in and the bodies of the dead were carefully disposed on the beds where they had found death. Except the father, the family seemed to have died easily and without suffering. All by HELLMAN lay in natural positions, just as though their slumbers were one from which they could be awakened. In the bed with the father were the two boys, FRITZ and WILLIE, and the girl, IDA. The baby of the family, little 4-year-old HEDWIG, was with its mother in the other bed. The posture of HELLMAN'S body in the bed indicated that he had fought ineffectively against the death which was choking the life out of him. He had raised himself to a half sitting posi- tion and the right arm lifted as if in an effort to ward off the fate that was upon him. How he struggled there alone in the darkness no one can ever tell. It was plain that at last he grew too weak to move, his head fell sideways on his arm and in this position he died. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The Inter Ocean of Jan. 6, 1896, states that FREDERICK HELLMAN murdered himself and his entire family rather than have them face disgrace by finding that he had deserted a wife and family in Germany. By the end of day, July 11, 1895, newspapers were already declaring it murder. ===========================================================================