In early June, an old friend of mine died in Missouri. There are some questions as to how he died (murder or “death by misadventure”).
My friends and I googled and used other tools prior to and after the funeral to try and find more detail, but we couldn’t find even a death notice. I’m hoping that someone in Missouri might have seen a death notice or a newspaper article that could help us out. Or maybe someone even lived in the same town.
We’d been out-of-touch with Tom for 10+ years (insert long story). So none of us can remember exactly where he was living.
His name was Thomas Robert Nielson
He lived within 100? miles of Branson
His wife’s name was Patty.
He had two sons, one of whom was named Wyatt.
He ran a small engine repair shop (last I knew).
He bled to death from a head wound.
The death question was, “Did he get drunk and fall or did he get drunk and get hid on the head?”
After the funeral, his dad told me that they were waiting for the autopsy determination as to whether Tom was murdered or just got drunk and fell down. I haven’t had the guts to talk to his folks - Tom was the Prodigal Son who never came home.
If any Missouri dopers can help me on this, I’d really appreciate it.
I seem to vaguely remember my husband mentioning something about a suspicious death a couple of months ago. He works in Dade county, Mo. I don’t remember much about what he said, or where he heard about it. I don’t think he was referring to a death within Dade county, though.
He will be coming home very late tonight, and if he’s not too tired, I’ll ask him if he remembers anything.
I tried to check the Springfield News Leader, but I am on an old computer that is connecting at a maddeningly slow 9600 bps. You will have to go back through their death notices, and maybe you can find something. Maybe try variations on the spelling of his last name, in case it was typed wrong? Unfortunately, that could have happened.
Hmm…I don’t know if you could learn anything by searching the counties in this area on Google, but it may help. Try Greene (Springfield), Taney (Branson) and Jasper (Joplin) to start with. Also possibly Dade. I wish I could help more, but my wheezing cyber-techno-tortoise just isn’t up to the task today.
I hope my husband can tell me something that will help. He may have been talking about a different person altogether, but most of this area is pretty lightly populated, so when bad things happen here, news really gets around.
If only we had a specific starting point, we might be able to locate info about your friend. I regret to say that my husband doesn’t remember enough about the death he’d heard about to help us find that starting point. Also, your old friend’s name name did not ring a bell with my hubby. I’m sorry.
I know I heard about something like this earlier this summer, so I still think it may have happened in my part of the state. If he was living in a small town, a death notice or obituary will likely be recorded online somewhere. The Ozarks are lightly populated, but nearly every podunk town has it’s own web page, and there are other papers to try. Don’t give up hope yet.
This site is full of newspaper links: [url=http://www.usnpl.com/monews.html]
Again, check for both “Nielson” and “Neilson”. I’m sorry I can’t help more right now.
You might be able to find something useful at the ePodunk site. I use this site all the time to find craft shows at which to sell my work.
You can type in any city or town, and on the page that comes up, there will be a link that you can use to find other communities nearby. There may be a working obituaries link on some of the larger town’s pages. Maybe that will help.
I wish my machine weren’t so. damned. slow., grrrrr! I do chores while waiting for pages to load. At least work is getting done around here.
