FARMINGTON TIMES, Farmington, St. Francois County, Missouri, Thursday, Jan. 26, 1911 DECLARED TO HAVE BEEN ELECTROCUTED Charles Summers, aged about thirty-five, who was reported as having died of heart trouble just after going on shift at the Mitchell shaft of the Doe Run Lead Company, last Thursday morning, was not buried until Sunday afternoon, pending an investigation as to the cause of death. A coroner's jury was impaneled to determine the cause of death, and the jury returned a verdict of death from heart failure, but the widow of the dead man was not satisfied with the decision of the jury, and through the efforts of former Probate Judge G. O. Nations, an expert was summoned from St. Louis, and a post mortem examination was held by Dr. Gradwahl of St. Louis, and it is said that the expert was thoroughly satisfied that the cause of death was due to having been electrocuted. Summers went down into the shaft Thursday morning, and just before going down is said to have made the remark that after he had put in the day's shift he was going to get his pay and go home to see his family, who reside in Flat River. But five minutes later he was carried from the shaft a corpse. It is claimed that when Summers reached the bottom of the shaft he came in contact with a live electric wire by getting hold of a pipe wrench to which a broken wire had been connected by some unknown party. The voltage of the current knocked the young man down, and in falling he fell across the live wire, death resulting instantly. It is also claimed that a bright red streak was left on the dead man's arm, reaching to his body. The appearance of this led to the belief that death was due to some other agency than heart trouble. Summers was married and leaves a wife and one child, a boy eight or nine years of age. -- Desloge Sun.