Mrs. Anna Mae Mitchell, 32, Carey’s Run, mother of four small children, is dead as a result of drinking wood alcohol and Coroner Virgil E Fowler is investigating the case from three different angles, suicide, accident and murder. The fact that the woman drank the poisonous fluid Friday and that medical aid was not summoned until Sunday morning, is the cause for the thorough investigation. She is said to have been in the Newton Crane home on Carey’s Run when she drank the fluid.
Leroy Mitchell of 513 Fourth street, husband of the victim, said Monday that he was not convinced that his wife had committed suicide and has asked officials to make an investigation.
Mitchell said that his wife had lived on Washington street until about two weeks ago when she went to the Newton Crane home on Carey’s Run. He said that he had been separated from his wife for…
…more than two years and had seen very little of her in that time.
Crane told officials that Mrs. Mitchell was visiting at his home. He said that she came to his home intoxicated Thursday morning. He declared that she refused to tell him what she had been drinking but that he later learned rubbing alcohol was missing from a bottle in the home. He said that Mrs. Mitchell appeared to be sick and that a neighbor advised him to give her milk and eggs as an emetic. He said the milk and eggs made the woman seriously ill.
Crane claims that on Friday she drank wood alcohol. Crane avers that the wood alcohol was brought to his home by a man who had been doing tin work and used the liquid for cleaning metals.
Mrs. Mitchell was ill all day Saturday as a result of drinking the fluid but Crane declares that she would not let him summon medical aid. He said that she kept talking about her children and said she wanted to die.
Sunday morning the woman was taken critically ill and Crane summoned Dr. William E Singleton. He ordered her moved to Portsmouth General Hospital. Lynn’s ambulance rushed her to the hospital where she expired about 1 PM.
Mitchell said that he learned of his wife’s illness after she had been moved to the hospital and that she died before he was able to summon the children to their mother’s bedside.
County Coroner Virgil E Fowler and the attending physician will conduct a post mortem late Monday.
Deputy Sheriff Harry Thornton and Coroner Fowler went to the Crane home on Carey’s Run Monday to continue the investigation.
Mrs. Mitchell is survived by her husband Leroy Mitchell, four children, Albert Leroy Mitchell of 513 Fourth street and Alice Loretta, James Frederick and Robert Murfin Mitchell of the Scioto County Children’s home. She is also survived by her father, Thomas Stevens of Limerick, Ohio, two brothers, William of Jackson County and Robert Stevens of San Francisco, California.
The body is at the Lynn Funeral Home where it will remain until funeral arrangements are completed.
