Connecticut western news., 1876-02-25
THE VERMONT HORROR.
KilllnS his Father and Mother, Stabbins
 his WiTe. and then Hanging Himself.

KilIinS his Father and Mother, stabbing
 his wlEe. and then Hanging Himself.
 In East Lyndon, Vt., Silas Wilder, a well-to-do farmer, about thirty-three years of age, killed both his parents, wounded his wife, perhaps fatally, and then committed suicide. The details of the shocking affair show that the mur- der9 was insane, for on no other theory can his bloody deeds be explain ed. He had been married. only about five months, but had lived unhappily with his wife. His parents both strenu- ously objected to his marriage with her, but he persisted and brought her home to live with them. The parents resented this, and there has been much bitter ness and strife, especially of late. Wild CT has been greatly depressed in mind, and has shown symptoms of mental un- soundness, but has never been suspect ed of murderous or suicidal tenden- cies.
 As near as can be learned, the terrible events began in a war of words at the breakfast table. Wilder then started to get new pair of overalls, the straps of | which his wife had cut too short. He was very angry, and began abusing her, | when his mother spoke to him, saying {: "I am glad it was not me. If l had hdone this there would have been great CT row than there is now," or something to that effect. Thereupon MT. Wilder, being further exasperated, said: "-- you, will dry you up.' He immedi- ately started for the woodshed, threaten ing to kill them all. His wife followed him, and, as though seized by a sudden frenzy, he picked up an ax which lay close at hand. She grasped the ax and clung to him so that he could not use 1t, at the same time screaming for help. | Seeing his aged father coming to the rescue, Wilder shouted: elf I can't put | 8 stop to this with an ax, can with my knife" He then drew large clasp knife and stabbed his wife in her head and breast. She fell to the ground, and Wilder, turning from her, picked up the ax and dealt his father 8 blow on the head, the bit penetrating the skull, and he, too, fell bleeding and insensible. Wilder's mother, attracted by the noise of the struggle, went out to the shed, and seeing what was going on hurried back into the house, took down . large tin horn used to call the men from the fields to their meals, ran into the front yard and blew it, hoping to at tract the attention of the neighbors. Wilder heard her and following her into the yard split her head open with the same murderous weapon with which he had felled her husband. She was in stantly killed, but the old gentlemen, though terribly wounded, had somehow managed to crawl into the house, 8 dis tance of about seven feet from where he fell. Wilder returned to the shed, and finding his father still alive, lying on the kitchen floor, he again struck him with the ax, nearly severing the head from the body, and fastening the ax tight into the floor.
 | The murderer's wife had in the mean time regained her senses, and summon ing all her courage and strength she started for the nearest neighbor's, half 8 mile away. Wilder saw her as she went out of the door, and started for her, saying "For Gods sake, haven't l killed you yet7" She eluded him, how ever, and the desperate man cut his throat with the same knife he had stab bed her with.
 He, however, missed the larger veins and arteries, and though he bled pro- fusely, was not satisfied that it would kill him. Throwing his knife away, he went to the barn, took rope from the stall back of his horse, and climbed upon the high beams under the roof. Then making one end of the rope fast, he tied moose in the other, placed it about his neck, and jumped of. His neck was broken by the fall, and when the neighbors summoned by his wife ar. rived, they found his bleeding corpse swinging from the beams.
 The murderer's father was seventy three years old, his mother seventy, and his wife twenty two. The terrible af. fair has created intense excitement i1 the neighborhood. ,: