A group of boys were shooting fireworks outside of a warehouse in Montana when a driver and owner of the warehouse dragged one of the boys inside the building. The boy was found dead shortly thereafter.
Boy’s Decomposed Body Found Under Sacks of Oats
ANACONDA, Mont. — The badly decomposed body of 15-year-old Willie Barkovitch was found today under a sack of oats in the warehouse of Polich & Co., grocers of Anaconda.
The lad had been missing since July 2, 1906. The boy had evidently been choked to death.
Willie Bailey, who, with other boys, had been shooting off firecrackers at the back of the grocery store on the afternoon of July 3, told the police that John Clichan, driver for Polich & Co., after ordering the boys away, had caught young Barkovitch and carried him into the warehouse.
Bailey says that he heard screams from Barkovitch.
Clichan, who was arrested, claims to know nothing of the affair. Other arrests are expected to follow.
As a result of a coroner’s inquest held tonight, John Clichan and his employer, Matt F. Polich, are held on a charge of murder.
The evidence showed that the men dragged the Barkovitch boy into Polich’s warehouse, where the body was found.
The boy was afterward heard to scream for help.
The boy’s brother asked Polich what he had done with the boy, and Polich said:
“We killed him.”
Polich told others who asked him about the boy that he had allowed the boy to go. Polich explains the presence of the boy in the warehouse by saying that the boy was trying to steal flour and a sack of oats fell on him, crushing him.
The boy’s skull was fractured and his jaw broken.
Source: Deseret evening news. (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]), 12 July 1906.
