Connecticut western news., 1882-12-06
KILLED ON THE STAGE.
Shocking Occurrence Before nn Audience in
 a Cincinnati Theatre.

The play of ''Si Slocum" ended with a real tragedy at the end of the fourth act at the matinee in the Coliseum Theatre, Cincinnati, on Thanksgiving Day. Frank Frayne's company was playing, with Frayre as ''Si Slocum," and Miss Annie Von Behren as "Mrs. Lucy Slocum." It being Thanksgiving Day, the people and the performers were in good humor and in apparently full sympathy with each other. The audience appeared to be de- lighted and applauded generously, and the performers were stimulated to the top of their bent. Every thing went off brilliantly till the end of the fourth act, when the william Markham, who has cap tured Si Slocum, says, 'IH have you shoot the apple off your wife's head, and with the backward shot.
 Miss Von Behren, who had been per forming in that role since the death of Frank Frayne's own wife, some two years ago, was taking the character of Lucy. She stepped lightly to her post, wheire she stood with the apple on her head, looking the very personaitication of of wifeIy trustfulness and confidence. Si Slocum adjusted his mirror slowly. The wife was thirty feet away. His aim was
 
 more steady Of nerve. Bang went the rifle. The apple didn't fall, but the girl dropped full length backward with Q dull, heavy thud on the floor and the apple rolled away toward the footlights. Her face was partly hidden behind 8 wing of the scenes. With the flash of i had been shot, and turning toward the ] 4o 1N1t11 staggering sort of way, till he fell on the her body. The curtain fell over all.
 Immediately the manager came out and announced that slight accident had occurred and it was thought best not to give the fifth act, for which reason the play would now end The audience had up to this time suspected this was sur- prise introduced into the play, and that it was mere feigning. Some had ap- , plauded. Many, however, suspected an accident, but none seemedto have known it, Up to this time not moan or cry 1 had been uttered on the stage.
 Mrs. Slocrlm' fell without moan and lay motionless. "Si Slocum" lay i'll swoon behind her. The actors were discreetly silent. As soon as the i curtain fell Miss Von Behren was care 1 fully borne to her stateroom. A surgeon arrived immediately. It was of no use ]; she never moancd or spoke and scarcely moved In fifteen minutes after the | bullet struck her she was a corpse. Frayne was also carried to Q stateroom. As soon as he recovered sufficiently he came and knelt by the side of the almost lifeless girl and pleaded with her to speak. She heard nothing and gave no sign of consciousness, That stage was a chamber of death with all its accompani- mens. The actors rushed to their rooms after the death scene and gave way to overwhelming grief.
 Frank Frayne was taken to the station and locked up on Q charge of murder. When taken there he said to the officers: -" Make the charge as severe as you can. Make it the worst"
 The ball entered Miss Von Behren's forehead two inches above the left eye aud half an inch to the left of the me- dian line. The apple on her head rested on hat and the bottom of the apple was four inches above the top of the girls head, though with the makeup of her hair and hat it appeared much nearer. 1 The distance was thirty feet, the width of the little stage. The shot was Frayne's usual back shot, using the mirror. The place where the ball struck the girls forehead was directly in 8 plumb line below the centre of the apple. The rife used was @ 32-calibre breechloadine cartridge rife, made for Frank Frayne and used by him six years in this act.
 Frayne says the spring catch near the breech of the barrel, which holds it dowr after loading, broke or failed, and thai the stroke of the hammer on the cartridge threw the breech up and depressed tht muzzle at the moment of firing so as tt throw the ball downward. He also says that the apple placed as it was fairl. good shct would never miss it except b. some such accident as this.