The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1891-07-23
SHOOTS HER THREE chill
DREN THROUGH THE
HEART,
AND THEN KILLS HERSELF
She Was Tired of Life and Wanted to Go
to Heaven and Take Her Little
Ones With Her.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.-Mrs. Pattie
Lockridge, wife of Mr.. Thomas Lock
ridge, shot her three children and her
self about one o'clock yesterday after
noon at her home three miles south
east of Spring Hill. Mrs. Lockridge
was 30 years of age, her eldest child
four years old, second three years and
third four months. The awful deed
was done with q double barreled
breechloading shotgun. After dinner
Mr.. Lockridge went to church leaving
his home in it's usual state of quietness.
His wife had been complaining for some
time past, but on that particular after
noon she was no worse than she had
been during the week past. The
children were playing around as usual
and there was not the slightest hint of
the frightful tragedy. About o'clock
he returned to the pleasant little home
he had left and found the doors
locked, and he was compelled to force
a window sash in order to enter. A
strange feeling of impending evil came
over him. Not, however, until he had
gone into the dining room did the full
meaning of the sealed doors and win
dows burst upon him. There, upon a
pallet nicely arranged, lay his children
dead, and across the room, with her
feet turned to theirs, was his wife,
their mother, cold in the clasp OF
death. The double-barreled breach
loading shot gun, his companion in
many a jolly hunt, lay between them.
As near as can be learned from the
surroundings Mrs. Lockridge had
drawn up her children's clothes one
by one and placed the gun against
their breasts and fired. Then she
placed them side by side on the pallet
which she had made for the
purpose and arranged their dresses
nicely about them. Standing at their
feet and probably gazing down upon
them the distracted mother placed the
muzzle of the gun at her own heart
and sent her own soul to follow her
children.
After killing the first two she must
have reloaded the gun, and that she
did it shows that she was at least per-
fectly calm. How she pulled the trig-
ger when the gun was against her own
heart is a mystery, unless she did
it with stick held in her
hand or with her foot
1t is thought the woman poisoned or
chloroforned both herself and the
children before she used the gun. In
letter, given in part below, she refers
to pain in her side and says that it
would have been difficult to have
killed the little things while wide
awake, probably too difficult for even
the fiendish hand of child murderer.
The following letter was found in the
room with the murdered and the sui
eide:
July 10, 1S91.-Dear Tom: know
Won will be shocked when you get
back and find what 1 have done. If
Eunice (the oldest chilly had been at
home last Sunday evening this deed
would have been committed then, but
she had gone to church. could not
bear to leave her behind. do wish
YOU could go with u.s. But for you |
would gladly, gladly give up all and
go home to heaven. L sometimes teel
that am a terrible sinner, but now l
feel that the good Lord is watching
with the door open to welcome me and
our little ones. You have kept your
marriage vows so much more perfect
than l, but you know my had health;
| have been in bad health and bad
state of mind some time. feel that l
am tired OF life and must &c"
In concluding her letter Mrs. Lock
ridge gave instructions as to how her
clothing and other articles should pc
distributed. Mrs. Lockridge was sis
ter of Col. J. j. Odil, a we'll known
produce merchant of this city.