“I Know No Cause for her Act:” A Bewildering Suicide Inquest
Sarah E. Lirley, PhD | April 14, 2025
When conducting research for my 2024 book, Sudden Deaths in St. Louis: Coroner Bias in the Gilded Age, I came across a number of coroner’s inquests that fascinated and puzzled me. Most cases from the research for the book did not make it into the text—or even the endnotes—including the suicide of Josephine Langlet. And while her specific inquest is not discussed in the chapter devoted to deaths about suicide, it has always been in the back of my mind. The case is fascinating, largely because there are so few answers.
The afternoon of August 10, 1880 appeared to be an ordinary one for the residents of Myrtle Street. Josephine Langlet dropped off her baby, Charlie, with her neighbor, Fanny Owens, ostensibly so she could do some shopping in downtown St. Louis. Around 4:00, Langlet nursed her baby, kissed him twice, then kissed Mrs. Owens before leaving. Several hours passed. When Josephine had not returned to collect Charlie by 7:30 p.m., Mrs. Owens sent her son to get her. He found another neighbor, Mrs. Volz, on the porch, distressed because she heard no response to her repeated knocks at the door. She could not open the door. The neighbors sent for the police, who broke open the door. They found Josephine Langlet lying on the floor, next to the bed, a pistol by her side. She had, evidently, died by suicide.(1)
Deputy Coroner Frank R. O’Neil arrived the next day to conduct an inquest into her death. He spoke to her husband and her neighbors to determine whether she had, in fact, intentionally shot herself. Once he determined that she had died by suicide, he sought to determine why she had taken her own life, which was typical for coroners and deputy coroners in late-nineteenth-century St. Louis. He concluded his investigation, however, without finding a cause.(2)
Langlet was a respected member of her community, a young mother, and of the Catholic faith, but the inquest does not reveal the same level of sympathy that is often found in similar deaths by suicide. Deputy Coroner O’Neil looked for an explanation for her suicide, but not as thoroughly as some of his colleagues, particularly Coroner Hugo Auler, his supervisor.(3)
The inquest into the death of Josephine Langlet illustrates the argument in Chapter Three of Sudden Deaths in St. Louis. In some deaths by suicide, St. Louis coroners determined that the deceased suffered from insanity or temporary insanity. What today may be called depression or mental illness, coroners in the nineteenth century called “mental aberration,” “derangement,” or “mania.” If mental illness was not apparent, a death investigator may attribute a suicide to physical illness or even abuse from a spouse. These “qualified verdicts” were not uniform, however, but varied by coroner, the reputation of the deceased, and the testimony of witnesses, particularly family members. In some cases, coroners decided that there was an understandable reason for a suicide, which could reduce the stigma of the verdict and may make burial rites possible in some cemeteries. In other cases, including the death of Josephine Langlet, coroners did not add a qualifier to a suicide verdict.
Following standard practice, Deputy Coroner O’Neil determined whether Josephine Langlet had intentionally inflicted a deadly gunshot wound. He examined the body and its surroundings and interviewed three witnesses—two neighbors and her husband. He did not interview the two responding police officers or her parents, which was not unusual, but may have provided information about her death. Her parents may have provided some insight into why she died by suicide. The deputy coroner first interviewed Josephine Langlet’s husband, Mark, who worked as a deputy constable. O’Neil asked about his wife’s mental health and if they had any family discord. Mark Langlet acknowledged that Josephine had filed for divorce a year before her death, because of alleged infidelity, but then dropped the petition a few days later. Afterward, the couple got along well, he reported. Her husband also admitted that the couple had a three-year-old daughter, Pauline, who lived with Josephine’s parents, claiming that it was “for company’s sake.” Whether Josephine’s mental health and/or marital discord prompted the living arrangement is unknown. Finally, Mark explained that Josephine had been more “gloomy” than usual before her death.(4)
O’Neil then spoke to the couple’s neighbors, Annie Volz and Fanny Owens. They did not find Josephine to be gloomy, but, rather, said that she seemed happier than usual. Perhaps both observations were true. She may have been more cheerful because she planned to take her life. Both neighbors stated that they did not know of any marital conflicts, with one noting that Josephine had mentioned the divorce petition, but they did not know the reason for it. They believed that she was influenced by a close friend of hers who had recently died by suicide. One neighbor even commented that “She always held that suicide was not wrong,” revealing that despite her Catholic faith, she did not share the Church’s condemnation of suicide. O’Neil did not interview additional witnesses, finding sufficient evidence that she had taken her own life, although he did not understand why.(5)
Figure 1. “The Story of a Corpse,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 11, 1880, 8.
The verdict highlights the deputy coroner’s efforts to find a cause for her suicide: “her death was caused by gunshot wound . . . her intent being to commit suicide. Further that the cause of suicide is unknown.” His search for a cause for suicide could be because she was a respectable woman, a mother, and of the Catholic faith. Burial rites may have been at stake, as the inquest records a Catholic cemetery, although she was interred in a German evangelical cemetery. (Her husband was later buried in a different Catholic cemetery.) Furthermore, a verdict of insanity could have reduced the stigma of a verdict of suicide.[6]
The Langlet case is just one example of the somewhat subjective nature of coroner’s inquests. O’Neil conducted a thorough investigation by not only determining her cause of death, but searching for an underlying cause. But O’Neil did not consider persistent sadness or past marital troubles to be a cause for her death, as some of his colleagues may have. Another coroner would likely have rendered a verdict of suicide caused by insanity or temporary insanity, but most would have agreed with O’Neil’s assessment—that a root cause was unknown. As with other coroners’ inquests at the time, Langlet’s verdict resulted from information that the coroner looked for, collected, and interpreted. Although coroners had similar education and followed similar policies, they did not investigate deaths or render verdicts in a uniform fashion. While a verdict of “suicide” without qualification suggests that Langlet’s case was simple to solve, in fact, her death puzzled relatives, neighbors, and the coroner.
Figure 2. Josephine Sanglet Inquest, August 11, 1880, Case No, 2194, Folder 25, Box 23, Microfilm roll C31277 (St. Louis City Office of the Coroner—Inquests 1845-1900, Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri). The case is indexed as “Sanglet,” but the correct name is “Langlet.”
For Further Reading
Historian Stephen Berry has recently published an excellent book about coroner’s inquests: Count the Dead: Coroners, Quants, and the Birth of Death as we Know It. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2022.
A classic and groundbreaking study of coroner’s inquests is historian Roger Lane’s Violent Death in the City: Suicide, Accident, and Murder in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.
FindaGrave is not just for genealogists! Historians can find details, including burial records and newspaper articles, here: https://www.findagrave.com
Want to research coroner’s inquests? Here is a database to get started. Other cities have similar databases: Index for Coroner’s Inquests from St. Louis as well as other cities and counties in Missouri: https://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/archivesdb/coroners
Notes
Josephine Sanglet Inquest, August 11, 1880, Case No, 2194, Folder 25, Box 23, (Missouri State Archives Microfilm roll C31277), St. Louis City Office of the Coroner—Inquests 1845-1900, Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri. The case is indexed as “Sanglet,” but the correct name is “Langlet.”
Langlet Inquest.
Her faith is assumed from baptism records of her children as well as her coroner’s inquest, in which her burial was initially listed as Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery. Her death record shows that she was buried in St. Marcus Cemetery, however. Josephine Langlet, Missouri Death Records, Digital Image, ancestry.com [accessed June 26, 2024]; Mariam Paulimam (Pauline) and Carlum Ludicum (Charles) Lenglet, Early French Catholic Records (Drouin Collection), 1695-1954, Digital Image, ancestry.com [accessed November 1, 2011].
Langlet Inquest.
Langlet Inquest.
Langlet Inquest; “The Story of a Corpse,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Wednesday, August 11, 1880, 9; “Dressed to Die,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Wednesday Morning, August 11, 1880, 4; “Mark Lenglet,” accessed June 28, 2024, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47969587/mark-langlet; Josephine Langlet, Missouri Death Records, Digital Image, ancestry.com [accessed June 26, 2024].
About the Author
Dr. Sarah E. Lirley is a historian who specializes in the history of women and gender, nineteenth century history, and the history of death and death investigations. Lirley is an associate professor of history at Columbia College where she teaches courses in U.S. history. Sudden Deaths in St. Louis is her first book.