Illustrated History of Klickitat, Yakima, and Kittitas Counties Interstate Publishing Co., Chicago, IL., published 1904, pages 119-120 (This event occurred in 1900)
But the year's record was marred by a serious tragedy in Klickitat county -- a murder and suicide at Trout Lake. The cause of this unfortunate affair was the old, old one of unreciprocated love. The principals were Ida Foss, a school teacher, the victim of the murder, and Benjamin Wagnitz, the murderer and suicide. Coroner Hart, who was called to the scene, reported the facts, or supposed facts, of the case substantially as follows: Miss Foss, who was teacher of the district school, was boarding in the Wagnitz house, in which were Mrs. Wagnitz, whose husband lived in Portland, and her two sons, Benjamin and August. On the evening of the fatal day, Sunday, May 22d, County Superintendent C.L. Colburn and his wife met Benjamin Wagnitz and Miss Foss near the bridge crossing the outlet of Trout Lake, and had a few minutes' conversation with them. They said that the young people both seemed happy and cheerful. After the meeting, Wagnitz and the young lady returned home. At the time of their arrival, the mother and son August were milking a short distance from the house. Hearing a loud scream and the report of a gun, they rushed home and soon saw Benjamin Wagnitz, gun in hand, leaning over the prostrate form of Miss Foss. The murderer called to his mother to come with water, but she was afraid to do so and went rather to a neighbor's house for assistance. As she left, she heard him exclaim: "Oh, what have I done! what have I done!" A few moments later a second shot was heard, and it was found on examination that both Wagnitz and his victim were dead. Miss Foss was shot in the back, the bullet passing through her right lung and entirely out of her body. Wagnitz had killed himself by placing the stock of the rifle on the ground and the muzzle against his heart, then touching the trigger with a foot-rule. He was twenty-seven years old; his victim was twenty-five. It is said that several times he had threatened the lives of mother and brother, and that that was the reason they were afraid to go near the prostrate girl at his solicitation. Miss Foss was a very estimable young lady, highly accomplished and unusually proficient in her profession. Her home was in Hood River, Oregon. There is no likelihood that she ever reciprocated in the least the affections of Wagnitz, in whose company, however, she had been seen frequently, and it is known that she had returned the day before her death a number of letters written to her by Wagnitz during her absence from Trout Lake. Of the quarrel, which proved the immediate cause of her untimely taking off, nothing can be known, but it is surmised that an offer of marriage on his part had excited a declaration on her part that she would have nothing further to do with him.
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© Jeffrey L. Elmer