Tragedy in the Woods Near Lone Prairie

At an early hour this morning, the village of Windsor, located near this city, was the scene of a horrible fire. A man returning home at 2:30 o'clock discovered the small frame house of Frank Kioi on fire. Help was summoned, but before it arrived, the house was totally destroyed. After daylight, a search was made for the bodies of the family who were thought to have been in the building. Mr. Kioi was found on the floor in the front room with his wife in his arms, both bodies being burned to a crisp. A few feet away lay the remains of their oldest child, a boy, three years old. Of the other two infants, aged eighteen months old, there was no trace, and it is supposed that the bodies were completely consumed. From the positions of the bodies, it is thought that Mrs. Kioi, who was an invalid, had overturned a lamp and was overcome by the flames before help could reach her. A similar deplorable event occurred near Lone Prairie, about eight miles from this place. Mrs. Mercer, a relative of David Chambers here, had for some time manifested symptoms of insanity, and according to reports, the last evening she saturated some papers with coal oil and distributed them around the house, telling one of her children upon inquiry that she was wetting them with water. Early this morning, she made a remark that she was about to destroy the whole family, and her husband, fearing that she was about to attempt their life, proceeded to put her out of the room, but on opening the door, he discovered that the house was in flames. Reaching the front door with one of his children, he found it locked and the key removed. Thereupon, he ran to the back door and found it nailed up. Finally, he and his little daughter succeeded in escaping through a window, but both were badly burned. The unfortunate woman with her four children were burned to death.