The Mystery of the Missing Infant
After the death of Hannah Whitnall, conflicting stories from her relatives and an unusual exhumation led to a macabre public investigation regarding a missing child's remains.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The death of Hannah Whitnall on October 11, and the subsequent efforts of her relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Pollock, to exhume her body and transport it to Mason City, Iowa, sparked a local investigation. Suspicion arose over the mysterious disappearance of an infant supposedly buried in the casket with her. Mr. and Mrs. Pollock provided contradictory stories to the proprietor of the New England Hotel, first claiming they had moved to Seattle for good, then alleging that Hannah had been involved in an 'improper' relationship with a man she claimed was her brother. When the casket was exhumed after five days, the body showed signs of rapid decay, leading to questions about potential poisoning. Undertaker Charles Butterworth admitted he had initially placed the infant's body in the casket, but Dr. Emonda had later removed it, leading to a breakdown in communication that fueled public speculation about foul play.
“I could not think of going East without Hannah's body.”
This case reflects the late 19th-century preoccupation with morality and public health, where private family secrets were often laid bare through the formal, sometimes gruesome, lens of coroners' reports and newspaper exposés.
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