Brooklyn Eagle/1868/Investigation by Coroner Rollins of New York

The Long Island Mystery. Investigation by Coroner Rollins of [New] York. The Father, Mother and Brother of the Deceased Girl on the Stand. Inside View of a Private Lying-in Hospital by a Medical Student. The Eagle of Saturday last contained an account of the death of the daughter of Mr. Lattin, of Farmingdale, Long Island, who died a few days previously at the aged private lying-in asylum of Dr. Grindle, No. 6 Amity street, New York, under alleged suspicious circumstances. An inquiry into the cause, which resulted the death of Susannah Lattin, was commenced in New York on Saturday afternoon by Coroner Rollins, when the father, mother and brother of the deceased girl were examined and testified in substance that after the disappearance of Susannah, they learned by letter in the early part of June, that she was keeping out of way in consequence of being in a delicate condition that the landlady of the boarding house in New York, where she was stopping, had threatened to turn her out onto the street unless she paid two weeks board then owing. They were unable to say by whom her ruin had been effected, but supposed it had been done by a young man employed in a Brooklyn boot and shoe store, with whom he had been keeping company. His name, her brother thought, was George Hotten, clerk in Whitehouse's shoe store, in Fulton street, Brooklyn, The same person also stated that his Meter had refused to return home on amount of the condition in which she was in, and also that the author of her ruin bad endeavored to persuade her to take unnatural and illegal means to do away with the proofs of their misconduct, Edward Danne, the medical student who had informed Mr. Lattin of his daughter's whereabouts and of the precarious condition of her health, after stating the nature of the cases treated at Dr. Grindle's establishment in Amity street, said that gentleman had attended the deceased during her confinement, and when he left for the west he pronounced the patient to be quite satisfactory, and gave instructions to the student in charge of the establishment to call in Dr. Dorne, of Bleecker street, if additional advice should be needed. When Dr. Dorne was called, he said, deceased had fever and diarrhea, and witness afterwards understood him to say that she had typhoid fever. She grew gradually worse, and another physician, Dr. Finnell, of West Houston street, was called in; and when else grew very weak, she asked witness to tell her parents to come and see her, and gave the address of a man named Powell, in Fulton Market, who she said, could tell him the way to her home. He recognized Powell as the same person who had called on her three or four times. The examination will be resumed next Thursday.

Notes: The "George Hotten", who was a clerk in the Whitehouse's shoe store will later be identified as George C. Houghton who fled to Philadelphia, where he was arrested.