Louis Cornwall
From Kook Science
Louis Cornwall was a rancher resident near Washakie's Needle in Wyoming who was reported during November 1886 to have killed his wife and daughter then himself, these actions attributed to insanity brought on by the failure of Cornwall's attempts to discover perpetual motion.
Press Coverage
- "A Crazed Inventor's Awful Deed.", Harrisburg Daily Independent (Harrisburg, PA): 1, 13 Nov. 1886, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/82954163/, "DENVER, Col., Nov. 13. — Information of a double murder and suicide near Washakie Needle, Northern Wyoming, has just been received here. Louis Cornwall, in a vain attempt to produce a perpetual motion machine, became insane and stabbed his wife and daughter to death. He then went out in a yard and blew out his brains. His son, 8 years old, was spared."