Deaf and Dumb, Insane 42 Years, Ends His Life

1913

ESCAPES ASYLUM BY SUICIDE

Pauper, Born Deaf and Dumb, Ends Long Life As Public Charge

BEACON, N. Y., Nov. 12 — Levi Bodine, deaf and dumb since his birth in an almshouse sixty-five years ago, committed suicide today by leaping into an ice pond of the Matteawan State Hospital, where he was an inmate. Forty-two years of his life had been spent in insane asylums. Bodine was born in the Ulster County almshouse and taken from there by a respectable farmer whom he later killed. At his trial he was declared insane and was committed to Auburn. He was one of the first patients to arrive in Matteawan when this hospital was opened.

—The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana, November 13, 1913, page 15.