The Baytown (TX) Sun - Friday, 20 Apr 1951

How Did He Die? --
AUSTIN BUSCH'S DEATH REMAINS A MYSTERY

How did Austin Busch die?

Investigating officers today had only the word of a nine-year-old boy to explain the mystery of how Busch, 56-year-old Baytown Refinery worker and lifelong resident of Cedar Bayou, met death as he drove his tractor across Cedar Bayou bridge on Highway 146 at 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

Busch, his head crushed, was removed from his tractor by three men who had just passed the tractor in a truck. He was dead on arrival at a Baytown hospital.

Sheriff Lewis Otter of Chambers County said the little negro boy, Gerald Sinigard, told him a pipe projecting from the side of a truck struck Busch and he slumped over. Otter quoted the boy as saying the tractor then ran on down the road and stopped when it struck a guard post.

The truck driver, E. G. Blasingame, told Chambers County officers he did not believe the pipe on his truck struck Busch. Blassingame, employed by H. H. Hardy, Gunite contractor, said he heard a noise as he crossed the bridge.

He looked back, he said, saw a box on the bridge and decided his suitcase had blown off the truck. He drove to the end of the bridge, turned around and came back.

"We found the man on the tractor. His head was hanging off by the back wheel and blood was everywhere. We removed him from the tractor and stopped a woman motorist and asked her to call an ambulance," Blassingame said.

State highway patrolmen had been called in to make an independent investigation today after Fred Chitty, justice of the peace at Mont Belvieu, failed to arrive at a verdict. Harris County officers also were assisting the Chambers County officers in their investigation.

Deputy Sheriff Arthur Barrow had preserved the muffler of the tractor, which he said was dented and smeared with red lead. He also had fragments of hair which he said he removed from the tractor. All will be sent to an Austin laboratory for analysis, he said.

Albert Hicks, 18, employed by the A. B. Lawrence ranch in Chambers County, and Carl Staples, Chambers County rice farmer and rancher, partly substantiated the boy's account of the accident, but were not actual eyewitnesses.

Hickes said he was driving up the incline to the bridge when he saw the tractor and the truck approaching. The truck passed the tractor, he said.

"Then when the truck passed me, I saw the tractor going off the road until it hit a post and the man was hanging on it," Hicks said. Hicks stopped and by the time he could get back to the tractor, the three men from the truck were there.

"They took him off the tractor and put him on the ground. The man had his feet in the tractor and his head and body were hanging over with his head beside the big wheel." Hicks said.

Staples' statement was about the same as that of Hicks.

Bush was wearing a watch he had received after completing 30 years employment at the Baytown Refinery. In his spare time, Busch contracted farm work and did some farming himself.

He lived on Hiway 146 about 200 years from the scene of his death. He had left his home less than five minutes before to go into Chambers County to do some mowing, friends said.

Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Cedar Bayou Methodist Church with Dr. John W. Mills. pastor, and Rev. P. W. Henckeli, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, officiating. Burial will be in the Cedar Bayou Masonic Cemetery under direction of Paul U Lee Funeral Home.

Survivors are his widow; two daughters, Mrs. Catherine Ann Fain of Kingsville and Mrs. Frances Elaine Tomson of Washington D. C.; and two stepdaughters, Mrs. Geraldine Behymer and Mrs. Mildred Robicheaux of Baytown.

Also surviving are three sisters, Mrs. Florence Weston and Mrs. Annie Arrington of Baytown and Mrs. Lucy Casey of Mont Belvieu; and three brothers, F. M. Busch of Mont Belvieu, E. E. and A. J. Busch of Baytown.

Pallbearers will be W. L. Bianscett, W. E. Burnett, J. C. Green, T. C. Smith, E. H. Lewis, D. L. Dewitt and W. H. Barker.