MURDER LAID TO HIRED MAN.

Body of Christ Johnson, a Kenmare Farmer, Found in Cellar.

With the face beaten to an unrecognizable mass and the head shot full of holes, the body of Christ Johnson, a Kenmare farmer, about sizty years old, was found in the cellar of his home, six and one-half miles south of Kenmare. R. S. Noah, who it is alleged, ran a blind pig in Minot for a year and a half and recently was released from the state penitentiary, and Patsy Coyle, who served time for robbing the post office at Newport, some time ago, were arrested and taken to Minot. Noah, whose home is supposed to be at Douglass {sp}, N. D., and a man by the name of Mills, supposed to be his father-in-law, appeared at the Commercial hotel at Kenmare a week ago. Noah had a gun and started out in the country, ostensibly on a hunting trip. He went to the home of Christ Johnson and hired out to him to work. Noah's father-in-law disappeared, and Patsy Coyle had not appeared on the scene.

Noah worked for Johnson until Johnson mysteriously disappeared. He was last seen on Thursday morning, when he started out to visit a neighbor, who lives a short distance away. He left the neighbor's place at 6:30 o'clock Thursday night, and was not seen again until his body was discovered yesterda yafternoon {sp} in the cellar of his home.

The theory on which Noah and Coyle are held is that Coyle went out to the Johnson home Thursday evening and that the two murdered him there. According to ther {sp} story, Noah and Coyle left the Johnson hame {sp} in a wagon about 8:15 Thursday night for Kenmare. Noah says that before he left the Johnson home he had made a deal with Johnson to buy his grain and personal property, paying him $650, and that Thursday night he drove Johnson to Kenmare, where he was to take the midnight train to St. Paul on his way to Europe.

Johnson's body was found in a corner of the cellar behind a potato bin. His head was curled down toward his feet. It is thought Johnson was murdered on his return from his neighbor's place, and that the body was thrown into the cellar in the hope that it might be concealed until the perpetrators of the crime had gone away.

Wahpeton Times, 4/9/1908