SEARCH SEWERS
FOR JOHN FAYHEY
BELIEVING HIS BODY IS PROB-
ABLY HIDDEN THERE.
THE QUEST IS FRUITLESS
PARTY WALKS MILE THROUGH
A MAIN SEWER.
Wife of Missing Man Believes His Is
Still Alive -- She Thinks He
Has Been Injured and
Will Return.
Every manhole, every telephone cable conduit, every underground passageway, even the Walnut street sewer; every possible hiding place into which a body could be stowed, in the neighborhood of Twelfth and Main streets, was gone through yesterday by friends of John Fayhey, who disappeared from the knowledge of his fellow men three weeks ago. No trace of the body was found by the searchers. The search underground was as futile as the body hunt of previous Sundys through the outskirts of the city and in the trenches made by men in the water works department. Fayhey was last seen at 1 o'clock on the morning of February 1, with a party of drunken men, at the corner of Twelfth and Main streets. He was a foreman in the city water works department.
Jerry Ryan, engineer at the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company's plant at Twentieth and Walnut streets, was in charge of yesterday's explorations. Jerry is a brother of Police Sergeant Al Ryan and of Mrs. Fayhey. Others in the party were Patrick O'Conner and Tom Bryan, city firemen, and City Detectives Raftery and Halvey. Jerry Ryan, geared in hip rubber boots, entered every opening on Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Main and Walnut streets in the neighborhood of the spot where Fayhey was last seen. No trace of the body was found.
Then Ryan and O'Conner entered the Walnut street sewer at Thirteenth street and explored it south to where it empties into O. K. creek at Twenty-Second street. Ryan, who led the way, was provided with a safety lamp.
This lamp was carried to guard against sewer gas. It is a device imported from the coal mining district, and is valuable in that whenever it is carried into a cloud of sewer gas it is extinguished. O'Conner, who followed with a lantern, was enabled to tell, by watching Ryan and the safety light, where there was sewer gas ahead and to avoid walking into it with his lantern. Only one body of gas was met, but if the lantern had been carried into this an explosion would have resulted which probably would have killed both men. The detectivs and firemen walked along Walnut street and opened the manhole covers ahead of the two men who were walking in the sewer.
No trace of Fayhey's body or any other body was found in the sewer. Jerry Ryan said, when he came out:
"No body could lodge in that sewer. The water, although in no place over knee deep, runs with a very swift current, and would carry any body out into O K. creek. It was not necessary to explore the entire length of the sewer but I did that to make certain that Fayhey's body was not there."
When John Fayhey's wife was told last night at her home ot 1605 Olive street that the search through the sewer and the conduits had been fruitless, she only reiterated her former belief that her husband was still alive.
"I know his is not dead" she said. "I firmly believe that he has been hurt and will come home when he is able."
Police Seargeant Al Ryan, Mrs. Fayhey's brother, holds a different theory. He says:
"There is no doubt that Fayhey was killed, and that his body is concealed somewhere. We have searched Kansas City from center to circuference, above ground and under, but without result. We have telegraphed a description of Fayhey to every town down the river as far as St. Louis. I think that the men who made way with Fayhey were drunk and did not mean to kill him. I know, however, that they had an automobile with them and when they saw what they had done, they put the body into the car and took it away. Probably they threw it in the Missouri river.
"I know that Fayhey had no money to speak of on his person the night he disappeared and I believe that the men who were with him killed him in a drunken brawl without any reasonable motive. I expect that someone who knows all about the killing will come in one of these days and tell the story."
