Payette Enterprise
Thursday, October 14, 1920
BEN COFFEE ENDS LIFE
Ben Coffee, a resident of Washoe Bottom, committed suicide sometime during Thursday night by shooting himself through the heart with a shotgun. His body was found about noon Friday by Mr. Pettit, a neighbor who was passing by and stopped at his home on the C.F. Draper ranch, as had been his usual custom. When Mr. Pettit entered the house - a small tenement house on the Draper ranch - he found the lifeless body in a pool of blood lying on the bed with the upper part of the body uncovered and a shot-gun under the covers where it had been kicked to the foot of the bed by the recoil of the charge. It was evident the gun was discharged by means of using his toe on the trigger. The charge entered the body directly over the heart causing instant death. Mr. Pettit at once notified Sheriff Jeffries who immediately went to the scene in company with County Attorney R.E. Haynes and Undertaker Glenn Landon who brought the remains to Lauers' Undertaking Parlor. As the evidence at hand showed clearly a case of suicide, no inquest was held. Domestic trouble is supposed to have been the cause of the rash act. Funeral services were held from the Baptist Church Sunday afternoon at two o'clock. The deceased was 33 years of age and leaves a wife, a mother, one sister and one brother.