John Nellesen

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Obituary- Neelson, John

BODY OF MURDERED MAN FOUND FRIDAY
The body of a dead man was found last Friday in an abandoned road on the old Fowler ranch northwest of Maple Hill, by a young man named Adams who passed by the lonely spot while driving some mules.

The Wabaunsee, Shawnee and Pottowatomie county officers have been investigating the affair all week and a net of circumstantial evidence has been woven about two or three young men.

The mutilated body was identified this week by relatives as that of John Neelsen, 24 years old, of Elgin, Neb.

Discovery of Neelsen’s body ended a search conducted by his relatives in Nebraska. The Nebraskan left home September 24 for Walnut, Crawford county, Kansas, where he had rented a farm. He was driving a small Buick automobile with a trailer in which he carried a disc plow. At Hiawatha, he traded the Buick for a Pontiac coupe and continued his trip. He reached Walnut, did some work on his new property, and started for home.

When his body was found a piece of a gold watch chain dangled from his watchpocket. His watch and other valuables had been taken and his car was gone. Death had been caused by a bullet which entered his right eye.

Neelsen’s death is supposed to have occurred on the night of October 5th.

Theodore Moore, 24, of Rossville and “Chuck” Fauerbach, 24, son of a prominent Maple Hill farmer, are both under investigation in connection with the slaying.

Moore was arrested with Fauerbach in St. Marys shortly after midnight Saturday and was surrendered Monday to officers from the state reformatory at Hutchinson from which he recently was paroled after serving 17 months of a five-to-ten-year sentence for motor car theft in Shawnee county.

Shortly after midnight Saturday night Moore drove a Pontiac coupe into the St. Marys downtown district. Two night marshals, George Marks and Ed Rogers, examined the motor car, recognized it as one for which they had been watching in boot-legging investigations, and arrested Moore.

The officers discovered the motor car driven by Moore carrying a Kansas license plate, had been sold in Hiawatha. They learned from the Hiawatha dealer that the car had been sold to Neelsen. Moore said he had bought the machine from Chester Tork, Topeka. Tork denied this and Moore said he had bought it from another Topeka man.

Wabaunsee authorities were notified. They traced the car’s Kansas license tag and learned it had been taken from a wrecked machine near Maple Hill. A grip, watch, clothing, and two blankets, later identified by Mrs. Neelsen as owned by her husband, were found at the home of one of the two suspects.

The Nebraska license tag, transferred by Neelsen from his Buick to the Pontiac at Hiawatha, was found in a ditch at the side of the road near Rossville.

Wabaunsee officers still are searching for a motor car trailer and a disc pow said to have been drawn by Neelsen’s automobile and this disappeared with the car and the victim’s personal property at the time of his death.