July 21, 1916: Fatal Abortion Perpetrated by Boyfriend

Elizabeth Radcliffe and Roy Hinterliter

Late in the evening of July 21, 1916, 21-year-old farmer Roy Hinterliter showed up at the sanitarium in Olney, Illinois with a young woman, Miss Elizabeth Radcliffe, slumped over onto his lap in his buggy. He asked for medical help for her, but Elizabeth, age 17, was immediately pronounced dead. 

It was eventually learned that the young Paoli girl had died at a rural trysting spot near a bridge, where investigators found signs of a struggle. Imprints of Elizabeth's hands and Hinterliter's feet were found in the sand. After Elizabeth had died, Hinterliter had loaded her body into the buggy and ridden into town with her.

An autopsy confirmed pregnancy, but showed no external signs of violence and all her reproductive organs appeared normal. However, upon cutting open her heart, air escaped. One news report stated that the doctor "found the heart so filled with air that it made a hissing like a plugged rubber ball when a pin was stuck into it." There was so much air in Elizabeth's brain that it floated when placed in water. There were no lung lesions to explain the air in Elizabeth's bloodstream.

Evidently Hinterliter had told Elizabeth that he had arranged for two doctors to perpetrate an abortion. 

Elizabeth's sister-in-law, Mrs. Bert Fancher, had suspected that the girl was pregnant. When pressed, Elizabeth confirmed the suspicion but told her, "I'll soon be out of this trouble." 

Two boys were spotted in town trying to hide a package. They were arrested, and told police that Hinterliter had asked them to get rid of the contents of the package -- a catheter with the plunger missing. They said that they had been with Hinterliter in the drug store when he'd bought it. He had told them that a doctor had told him how to use it. 

It eventually came out that Hinterliter had taken out the plunger and instead blown into the catheter -- with which he had accidentally punctured a vein. Thus he blew a quantity of air directly into Elizabeth's blood stream. She would have died almost instantly.

Hinterliter was arrested and immediately began refusing food. When this news reached his mother, Emma, she went into an emotional breakdown. The family was prosperous financially and hired a judge as his defense attorney. In spite of this, the young man remained in jail without bail while awaiting trial.

Elizabeth's brothers, John, Robert, and Edward, travelled to Olney to assist in the investigation. John and Robert had to return to the family farm near Rego, Indiana, to help their septuagenarian parents.

Hinterliter insisted that he was not responsible for Elizabeth's pregnancy and that the guilty man had framed him with the help of Elizabeth and one of her friends. He asserted that she had complained of faintness then collapsed into his arms while they were ridding in his buggy. The state asserted that Elizabeth had died under an oak tree on a rock road two miles south of town during the abortion attempt.

Hinterliter was sentenced to prison for Elizabeth's death.

Sources:

• "Young Man is Held for Death of Girl," Belvidere (IL) Daily Republican, July 25, 1916
• "Roy Hinterliter Says He is Being Made 'The Goat'," The Day Book, July 27, 1916
• "Bubble Death Perils Reason," Freeport (IL) Perils Reason, August 1, 1916
• "A Breath of 'Freedom'," Mt. Carmel (IL) Daily Republican, October 7, 1916
• "Hinterliter Case in Nov.," Mount Carmel (IL) Register, November 9, 1916