The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-07-20
A DEED OF BLOOD.
An Insane Man Butchers Ills wife md Two
Chiidrcn---Then Blows Out His Brains.


Joliet (Ill.) dispatch says This after
noon horrible tragedy occurred near
Dwight, small village about thirty miles
from here, where a wealthy and wel-known|
farmer butchere1 in cod hood his wife,
two children and then blew his own brains
out. The history of this dark deed is as
sensational as a writer of fiction could wish.
number of yeirs ego Andrew White was
one of the most prominent property holders
of Chicago, AMI made for himself an i'm
mense fortune, with which he retired to al
stock farm near Dwight, where he has lived
most of the time since.
His steady attention to business and the
consequent mental strain affected his mind
to such an extent that he had to be|
carefully watched by his family. Hen
grew steadily worse and worse until
his strange freaks were so unbearableI
that he had to be sent to privateI
asylum. Here he acquired the strange andI
fatal hallucination that his Imprisonment
was due to desire on the part of his wifeI
and children to get hold of his fortuneI
and spend it. He communicated the fears|
to the warden of the institution, Who'll
caused the patient to undergo a ri gid|
medical examination. in which,
such conclusive evidence was deduced that
he was declared hopele:sly insane. lie was'
continually inventing means of ESCAPE toI
execute vengeance NJ on his family; but not|
until week ago did he succeed in obtaning|
his liberty through the carelessness of his |
custodians.
He speedily made his way to his formerI
home. near Dwight, on his mission of VEN
geance, purchasing large Smith d. Wesson
revolver en- route. Reaching the house in
the middle of the night he watched till
morning, when he advanced to the front
stoop and called out to his wife to comeI
down and welcome him. The family, con-
sisting of the wife and two children, ageiI
ten and eighteen years, rushed at once to-
ward the porch, rejoiced to hear the familiar
voice, and supposing that the husband and
father had been released from the asylum
in the pos session of his faculties.
he allowed each member of the family to V
caress him, and moment after without the /
least agitation, drew from his pocket the re-
volver, and looking his wife in the face,
said: You want my money, my fortune-I
take that :" and he sent bullet crashing
through her brain, and she fell dead on the |
porch, as he turned and buried bullets in the /
brains of his boy and girl.
When he had done this he laid down the
revolver and gazed upon the fearful deed he |
had perpetrated. For moment the horror |
of the act seemed to restore his reason, and
with desperate cry he fell upon the
corpse of the wife, kissing it and weeping
over it. His hallucnation returning, how
ever, he dragged the bodies of the dead into
the dinlng-room and laid them out on the
table, the wife first, the boy next and the
girl last.
The murderer then returned to the front
porch, and procuring the revolver re-en-
Tered the room of death then, seating him
self on the be near his wife placed the
revolver to his head, and, pulling the trig-
ger, in a moment lay dead beside her. The|
four corpses on the table were the CHASTITY
sight that greeted the eyes of the hired man.
James Mcpherson, who had been drawn
from the field in which he was blowing by
the pistol shots.