When G.F. Heath’s young son was killed beneath a string of railroad cars near Apple Creek, grief initially left him unable to question how the tragedy had happened.
Then his surviving son, Wilbur, told him what he had witnessed.
Heath began gathering evidence and preparing to prosecute, but the investigation soon encountered another obstacle: railroad officials had reportedly failed to provide information requested by the coroner.
With crucial details still missing, the grieving father set out to find the other boys who had been aboard the train and determine whether his son’s account could be confirmed.
Probes Death of Young Son
BISMARCK, North Dakota. — G.F. Heath, the father of the boy killed at Apple Creek some time ago, in falling from a train while being driven over by some box cars by a brakeman, has written E.G. Fields, the coroner, requesting that a certified copy of the proceedings and findings of the coroner’s inquest to date be made and forwarded to him.
At the time of the accident he was too overcome to think of anything else and upon his son Wilbur’s story, he at once decided to prosecute the case.
The railroad officials have shown a marked neglect in complying with the coroner’s requests for information asked by the inquest jury, according to Mr. FIelds, and their refusal to answer his questions have hindered him materially in his investigation, he say.
Thomas Duggan, the brakeman in question, has not fulfilled his promise to send a statement of the make up of the train, as yet, and the coroner has received no reply from the master at Mandan, to whom he wrote for the same information.
Mr. Heath is collecting all the evidence concerning the accident that it is possible to obtain as he wants to satisfy himself in the matter. He is advertising in the Milwaukee papers for the boys who were in the refrigerator car with his two sons and although it is not likely that he can find them, in case he does he will be able to corroborate or disprove the statements of his son Wilbur, which incriminate the brakeman seriously.
The boys advertised for gave their homes as Milwaukee, and said that they were on their way there.
Source: The Evening Times. Grand Forks, N.D. August 1, 1911.
