This two-part drama is the kind of story that gives newspaper editors dyspepsia. We begin with the Tribune’s Page One account of an apparent suicide:

Woman Takes Death
Leap From Bridge

Mystery Will Not Be Cleared
Until Body Is Recovered
From River.

Leaping over the rail of the Washington avenue bridge to the Mississippi river bed 150 feet below, a well-dressed unidentified woman last night furnished the police with a mystery case which probably will not be cleared up until the body is recovered.

According to a telephone report to the police, the woman was seen making the jump by a passing automobilist; A.C. Jensen, night police captain, said last night. The name of the man who saw her leap to death was not learned.

Detectives from police headquarters and a squad of patrolmen from the Third precinct station were rushed to the river. An attempt to drag the river was abandoned due to the high water. Search of the “flats” under the bridge failed to shed any light on the mystery.

The mystery was soon resolved. A report in the next day’s paper was buried at the bottom of an inside page:

‘Woman’ Who Leaped in
River Only Rag Bundle

University of Minnesota students playing a “practical joke” were originators of the mysterious woman who made the alleged jump from the Washington avenue bridge Sunday afternoon, it became known late yesterday.

The hat and note left on the bridge were a “plant” by the jokers, according to their admission, and the whole affair was designed as a joke on the police, they said.

Driving up in a car when the police had arrived, they witnessed the “discovery” of the hat and note, they declared.

The original Washington Avenue bridge in Minneapolis in about 1925. (Photo by John Runk, courtesy mnhs.org)

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 30th, 2006 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Main, Mayhem. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.