On This Date in Minnesota History: March 1

March 1, 1909 – Henry M. Sussman, serving a life sentence for murder in the second degree for shooting his wife in the The Glenwood Hotel, Minneapolis, committed suicide in his cell at Stillwater between midnight and 6 a.m. this morning. He was found hanging by a cord made of the covering of his pillow.

Sussman was received in the prison Dec. 19, 1906. His parents live in Fargo, N. D., and he has brothers in St. Paul, where he worked.

The Sussman crime was committed Sept. 26, 1906. For a while there was no trace of the slayer, as apparently no one had heard the shot that killed the young woman, nor had known the young man who had brought her to the room the night before. An attempted suicide in a rooming house on Nicollet Avenue brought a speedy solution, for Sussman had taken a room, laid himself out on the bed and turned on the gas. He was taken by the detectives before he was in a dangerous condition and locked up, charged with murder.

His trial followed shortly afterward on a charge of first degree murder, the jury giving him the benefit of the doubt on his story that his wife had angered him by taunting him until, in a rage, he didn’t remember what he did. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Minneapolis Tribune; “Minneapolis Murderer Hangs Self in His Cell at Stillwater”; March 2, 1909; p. 7.

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