Asked His Wife to Shoot Him.

Lourens Signourette and his wife lived near Foster’s Bar, a remote camp in the Yubas Foot Hills in California. Lourens had been ailing for quite a while, and on December 1, 1891, he decided to end his life by taking strychnine. The poison did not have the immediate effect that he wanted, so he asked his wife to get his shotgun and shoot him.

She honored his request but had trouble getting the gun to work. When she finally fired, the shot did not kill her husband. He then told her to pile brush over him and set it on fire to burn him to death. This she refused to do. Instead, she walked some distance to a cabin occupied by a man named George and asked him to help burn her husband. George also refused, and he notified a constable about the situation. When they all returned to the Signourettes’ cabin, they found Lourens dead.

The constable arrested Mrs. Signourette. She told the police about Lourens taking strychnine and his request to be shot. She justified her action by saying that she promised to obey him when they were married. The County Coroner announced that he and a physician would travel to Foster’s Bar, where the body of Lourens Signourette would be exhumed and autopsied. If the facts were not as Mrs. Signourette related, she would be charged with murder.

While this story was published in newspapers across the country, the details, even in California papers, were very sparse. None of the stories included Mrs. Signourette’s first name, George’s last name, or the results of the autopsy (and the picture is not accurate). It is probably safe to assume that the coroner was satisfied with the outcome and dropped the matter.

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Sources: 

“Accommodated with a Killing,” Illustrated Police News, January 2, 1892.
“Announcements,” Mayfield Weekly Monitor, December 16, 1891.
“The Coroner Will Investigate,” Sacremento Daily Union, December 10, 1891.
“He Said Shoot and She Shot,” Trenton Times., December 9, 1891.
“Likely Died Happy,” Daily Inter Ocean, December 8, 1891.
“She Complied with the Request,” Helena independent, December 8, 1891.