The following is an article published in the Observer Newspaper on May13, 1912.
“Well-to-do woman dies strangely”
Union resident either killed or suicides today.
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Body found in stream with hands tied behind her.
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Early indications point to suicide but murder theory has superceeded it. In latter case indeed deep mystery would veil the situation in every detail. Inquest on.
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Union, May 13. –Special--Brutal murder or shrewdly outlined suicide with Mrs. Fred Ratz, a wealthy middle-aged resident of Union as the victim, is holding Union agog today. What at first was deemed to be suicide by drowning has become a mysterious horror having all the earmarks of a fiendish murder and mystery veils the affair from beginning to end. At a late hour today no clue has been found that offset the tangible theories of murder in a most brutal manner. Unless subsequent investigation discloses otherwise, the belief will prevail otherwise, the belief will prevail that MRS. Ratz was taken to a vacant piece of ground adjoining Little Creek in Northeastern Union, divested of her outer garments, and her hands tied behind with a corset string and a shoe string and thrown into the creek where the waters, now roaring in a torrent from melting snow are ferocious enough to float a horse, much less a human body. The body was carried down an irrigation flume to the crossing of the road at the Hutchinson place, a distance of several hundred yards where it was unloosened by patrollers under direction of George Huffman.
--Suicide First Admitted—
In the beginning of the search by about 50 people which was occasioned this morning by Mr. Ratz when, about 4 o’clock he found his wife missing, there was every indication to point to suicide. In an informal search for the whereabouts of his wife, Ratz soon located his wife’s outer clothing, lying in a field near the road. He summoned help and officers and a careful search was instituted that led to the discovery of the body a considerable distance below the spot where the clothes were found. It had been carried under than fastened to a heap of brush which was loosened by the polers. When the body was floated to the surface officers immediately removed it to the morgue.
--Hands are tied.—
It was after the body had been recovered that the murder theory cropped out on tangible facts. Her hands had been tied behind her in such a way that it w-Demonstration Convinces the Jury of Suicide-as barely possible for her to have done it herself in an effort to throw officers off the suicide scent, but many who have inspected the remains are concluding that such would be impossible and hold that murder had been committed. In the search for the body the field had been tramped and retramped in such a way that it would be impossible to discover the presence of other footprints than her own on the scene where the body was either willingly or murderously thrown into the water. When tied, her hands were about eight inches apart, and there is a possibility of her having concocted the notion of covering her tracks in this way. It is scouted by many as impractical and almost impossible.
-Cause for Crime Unknown-
Though there may yet develop some fact to throw more light on the dreadful accident, there is now nothing to base a cause for either suicide or murder. The woman was middle aged and her full grown family, like Mr. Ratz and herself, are well provided for with worldly goods. Hints of family troubles have circulated about Union but nothing is substantiated. The home was deserted long before daylight by the woman, for her absence was discovered at 4 o’clock by Mr. Ratz. Had she been lured from her home and then murdered, further mystery as to how the details were worked out are created. In this particular phase there is an earmark of suicide. The posse that found the remains eventually, was formed about 6 o’clock, and kept growing in size and numbers until a goodly portion of the city was in the hunt.
-Inquest this afternoon.-
Immediately after luncheon, the coroner’s jury went to the scene of drowning and then convened in a special session to determine if possible any facts other than those known.
Much speculation is rife as to what the jury will do, if nothing more substantial in the way of facts are unearthed.
The following is an article published in the Observer Newspaper on May14,
1912.
“Suicide agrees Union Jurors”
-Demonstration convinces the Jury of suicide.-
Unable to give any legitimate reason for the suicide than despondency from illness, jurors return verdict in Union case—New developments are that clothes misleading.
Union May 14.—Special—unable to come to any other conclusion than that Mrs. Fred Ratz met her death by voluntary action, the coroner’s jury late last night returned a suicide verdict. Several witnesses were called with Attorney J.F. Baker of La Grande representing the state but no inkling of murder proof cropped out. One or two sensational features developed to add to the facts and surmises already common property and one of them is that the body could not have floated of its own accord from the point where the clothes were found to the Hutchinson crossing on the Cove road. This is a distance of a quarter mile and is over hung with brush and crossed by wire fences in various places. The general belief is that this does not change the suicide feature but does change the probable place where Mrs. Ratz plunged to her death. She must have disrobed at one point in the field and gone to a lower point to step into the water. The body could not have been carried the quarter of a mile between the spot where the clothes were found to the point where the body lay.
-Knot tying demonstrated-
Before the coroner and his jurors practical demonstrations of hand tying were made. It was proven to the satisfaction of the jurors that one could tie his hands himself in the way Mrs. Ratz evidently had. With the verdict is no explanation of cause other than, as shown by the evidence Mrs. Ratz had been in ill health of late and had been despondent. At one time she is said to have remarked that she was indifferent as to whether she lived longer or not, in fact, expressed a willingness to die.
-Funeral tomorrow-
With the actual details of the departure from her comfortable home at night, her death walk to the banks of the torrent stream, her deliberate delay in tying her hands after divesting herself of outer clothing, the selection of a satisfactory spot to leap to her death in the mad, dirty waters of Little Creek, the brief struggle between life and death and subsequent mystery by the latter, wrapped into the coffin with the dead woman preparations for the funeral have been carried out. Rev. Cockrum of the Presbyterian Church will preach the funeral sermon.
-Large family survives-
The husband, three daughters and two sons survive the suicide. Two of the daughters have been making their homes in La Grande of late.
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