Miami Union
19 July 1900
Ann Mathews
Something of a stir was created Friday night, by the unceremonious demise of Ann Mathews, an extremely fleshy darky, of Slabtown, and the arrest of her lover, Jim Martin, on the charge of murder. Martin was with her at the time and had quarrelled with her. The excitement was evidently too much for her, and when she arose she fell forward out the door and soon died. The excited imaginations of her daughter and another girl who overheard parts of the quarrel, soon supplied all the necessary details for a first-class murder, including threats, a struggle and the choking death of the victim by her dusky lover. When it came to a post mortem, no evidence of violence was discernible and it was satisfactorily proven that the death was due to the pressure of gas in the stomach came from a mass of undigested food, paralyzing the action of the heart. Martin, who had been in jail from Saturday till Tuesday morning, was then released. He should consider himself fortunate that the results serious, as, had not the evidence of the surgeons, Doctors Meaus and Loy, been conclusive, the chances are that he would have been convicted on false testimony.
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