Skeleton Found Near Morganton Hospital, Sept. 26, 1925

Skeleton Found Near Morganton Hospital. . . Man Had Been Dead Long Time—Believed to Have Been a Suicide

Morganton, Sept. 25—Wednesday morning a patient from the State hospital who has the freedom of the grounds and had gone into a thicket just beyond the hospital to set a squirrel trap made a gruesome discovery. About 300 yards from the Enola road and on the State grounds lay a pike of clothes and bones, outlining a man’s form, and several yards from the body was a skeleton.

Coroner J.B. Riddle was notified and summoning a jury made an investigation. The man had evidently been dead for some time and the evidence pointed to suicide. Above the spot where the skeleton lay was stretched a wire to which dangled a fragment of cloth. The coroner’s jury reached the conclusion that the man, possibly a patient at the State hospital, hanged himself and that the body hung suspended in the secluded place, unnoticed until it dropped from decay.

About seven months ago a patient by the name of McCrary disappeared mysteriously from the hospital and until this time nothing had been heard of him or no trace found. The theory is that the bones and clothing discovered represent the mortal remains of McCrary.

Considering the length of time that has elapsed, the clothing was in fairly good condition. The blue of the shirt and the heavy work shoes were evidence that it was the body of a farm patient at the hospital. In the pockets of the trousers was change in the amount of $1.10.

The remains were placed in a coffin and after such further investigation as the hospital authorities can make will be given decent burial in the hospital cemetery.

From the front page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, September 26, 1925

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