In early 1910, as a result of financial problems and lawsuits which delayed completion of construction of his building, John Hartness Brown was compelled to "unconditionally," according to a contemporaneous newspaper account, turn over the project to his lawyer, William Lowe Rice. When Rice, who was a Cleveland Heights neighbor of Brown, was murdered near his home on August 6, 1910, some suspected Brown--who had had a dispute with Rice--of involvement in the murder. Brown was never charged, and, although several other suspects were investigated by the police, the murder of Rice was never solved. | Source: Cleveland Public Library, Historic Newspaper CollectionDownload Original File
Source
Cleveland Public Library, Historic Newspaper Collection