Our series on Henry Goldenstein continues with the Quincy Whig-Journal providing additional background on Goldenstein.

[continued from Quincy Whig-Journal, 10 July 1921]–previous post here.

To the contrary he appeared anxious to get back to Kansas City, where he had gone last spring to enter an automobile school for the purpose of learning the trade of auto mechanic. There was no intimation from him that he was dissatisfied with either his vocation or with life in general. When he left his mother it was with a cheery good-bye and a hope that he would be able to return in the near future as a full-fledged mechanic, believing that he was make a success of it judging from the progress he had already made.

News Came as a Shock

For this reason when Thomas Carlin, mayor of Golden, received a dispatch from a Kansas City undertaker notifying him that he was holding the body of Henry Goldenstein, who had committed suicide in the Mid-West hotel, and asking what disposition was to be made of it, he was shocked by its contents. He immediately notified Mrs. Goldenstein, who was almost prostrated by the terrible news. She at once stated her doubt as to the truth of the message, so far as it related to the suicide of her son. There was not the slightest reason in the world, she said, why he should do such a thing. He was cheerful and in the best of spirits when he departed only a few days before, and her mother’s instinct fought against the thought that he had taken his own life.

At her request, Mayor Carlin wired the Kansas City undertaker to send the body to Golden, where it arrived Saturday morning.

Demand Investigation

The feeling in Golden among the numerous friends that he had met with foul play was so strong that an investigation was decided upon, sanctioned by Mrs. Goldenstein, who is firm in the belief that her son met his death at the hands of assassins.

State’s Atrorney Garner and Sherm Simmons were communicated with and asked to come to Golden. However, they requested that competent physicians be secured and that they make a thorough examination of the body , and report their findings to them. In the meantime they will set the machinery of the law in motion from this end and get in connection with the Kansas City authorities, if the examination discloses anything smacking of murder.

Dr. Peters, one of the examining surgeons, when called over the telephone Saturday night by the Whig-Journal, said, “Pending further investigation into the case, I am now in a position to say nothing whatsoever about the case.”

He left the impression that only a superficial examination had been made, but that a further one, which is to be more minute, is to be undertaken. Other reports were to the effect that not a bullet wound of any kind was discovered.

[to be continued]