Police Drop Burgess Case---Mystery Shrouds Death as Theories Persist

The body of F. William Burgess, recently retrieved from the Charles River, this morning arrives in Louisville, Kentucky, for funeral services this afternoon at 3 o'clock.

Mystery surrounds the circumstances under which the first year law student met his death. Police and friends are completely at a loss to tell why he jumped, fell, or was thrown into the Charles River. The doctor performing the autopsy stated death was accidental and that the backbone was broken by the fall. At noon, Saturday, November 13, he was apparently in good spirits and in good health as he joked with his roommate and friends in Perkins Hall.

Three o'clock the next morning his overcoat and hat were turned in at the Charles River Basin police station, reputedly found on the subway bridge. Monday, February 7, the body was found floating in the ice chop a half mile below the bridge.

Police Close Case

To some the case is closed. Boston, Cambridge, and Federal police have thrown up their hands and turned to other matters. The early facts of the case in police annals are that a coat and hat were found on the bridge early of a Sunday morning. But the body was not found after the river was dragged and a driver had searched every foot of the smooth river floor for 800 feet below the bridge. Finally the police issued a statement declaring the body could not be in the river.

Since the body was not in the river, perhaps Burgess was for some reason wilfully disappearing, or else suffering from amnesia. Circulars were sent out over the country. And three months later, ignored and forgotten, the river Charles divulged the decomposed body of the missing student. How did the body evade the grappling hooks and the diver, and turn up three months later half a mile down the river? Police state they "have no idea."

Crime Theory Persists

Many interested individuals about the University and in Burgess' home town of Cincinnati are not content, however, to let the case rest. Those familiar with Burgess or his character absolutely refuse to accept suicide. Nor can investigators find the slightest reason for Burgess' doing away with himself.

Conversely, there is no apparent reason for a crime. It was not robbery for money was found on his person and a watch was left untouched in the overcoat. Several factors are left to work on, however. There were reports current at the time that a flight had been seen on the bridge shortly before the coat was discovered; investigation is still in progress to clear up this point.

Certainly cries for help were heard coming from the proximity of the bridge; witnesses attest to that. And one man contends that he saw Burgess drowning in the water, and directed him to hang on a little longer. Significance is also attached to the fact that the body when found was minus the suit coat.

But as the days pass, the trail back to November 14 and before grows colder. Rumors are increasingly hard to follow up. Whether the occasion was a suicide or a crime may never be determined