John Bisher ¹

   FamilySearch ID: 98R9-CNN.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Newspaper: News-Sentinel, 22 Jan 1925, Rochester, Fulton, IN, USA. ² For the first time in the history of the Fulton circuit court, a case was postponed because of the suicide of the defendant during the taking of the evidence in the suit. This occurred Thursday morning when Judge CARR carried over the term the damage suit of Elmer MONESMITH vs. John BISHER due to the suicide of Bisher Wednesday night.

The jury was empaneled Wednesday morning after only one prospective juror had been excused for cause. Three witnesses had been placed on the stand by the plaintiff before the adjournment of court Wednesday evening. Judge Carr, it is presumed, will appoint an administrator of Mr. Bisher's estate and it is then probable that Mr. Monesmith may make the administrator the defendant in the damage suit.

Evidently dismayed by the evidence against him in the Fulton circuit court in a damage suit for malicious prosecution, John Bisher, 65, well known farmer who lives eight and one-half miles west of this city on the Burton road, committed suicide by shooting himself with a shotgun sometime Wednesday night. He was defendant in the Monesmith-Bisher case.
Phillip BAKER, a neighbor of Mr. Bisher and also a relative, made the discovery Thursday morning when he went to call for Bisher to bring him to Rochester in time for the trial. He immediately called Sheriff CARR and Coroner HIATT of Kewanna. After questioning a number of persons, Hiatt pronounced death was caused by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Mr. Baker's body was found at the foot of a stairway in the living room of his little farm home. From all appearances, Bisher, who had long arms, had faced the north and placed the gun barrel just over his left eye and then pulled the trigger. In his fall he hit the west side of the room, which was spattered with blood. The buckshot tore away the upper part of his head.

Mr. Bisher and his neighbor, Elmer MONESMITH, had had trouble over a ditch which led to the filing of a suit in the court of Justice of the Peace William EWING here on November 5, 1923, when Bisher charged Monesmith with damming a ditching that flowed through their farms. In the trial of the case it was shown that hogs owned by Monesmith had rooted in the sides of the ditch and . . . . [continued to missing page]. . . .

2. Newspaper: The News-Sentinel, 6 Jan 1926, Rochester, Fulton, IN, USA. ³ An echo of the suicide of the late John BISHER, a farmer of near Loyal on January 21, 1925, was sounded in the Fulton circuit court Wednesday in a claim filed against the estate of the deceased by Oscar MONESMITH for $85.
Bisher, after a day in the Fulton circuit court in which much damaging evidence was introduced against him in a damage suit for malicious prosecution filed by Elmer MONESMITH, went home and shot himself, leaving a note in which he stated that lies told by neighbors on the witness stand was the cause of the rash act.
As an item in this claim, Mr. Monesmith included a charge of $12 for driving Bisher in his car while he was procuring witnesses to testify in his behalf. Two other claims were also filed against Bisher estate Wednesday by neighbors who cared for the dead man's stock and guarded the premises for 21 days following his death. These claimes were filed by Dewey CRABILL, who seeks a judgment for $52.50 and Ora WALES one for $31.50.