The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1896-07-29
KILLED FIVE AND HIMSELF,
MURDERED WIFE, CHILDREN AND
COMMITTED SUICIDE.
Faithful Wife Had Prepared Supper and
Was Waiting When Der Husband An,
peared and Enacted the Tragedy.

ELBERToN, GA, July 22nd-Yester-
day afternoon at twilight: Dave Berry
man, white man, killed his wife, four
little children, the oldest of whom was
five years of age, and committed sui
eide. The awful tradegy was enacted at
Berryman's humble home, three miles
from Royston, in Madison county.
Late in the afternoon Mr.. Bergman
was at Hull & y aston's saw mill, snort
distance by the country road from his
home.
WIFE AWAITED HIS COMING.
When he arrived the four little chill
dren were playing in the house and the
faithful young wife had prepared sup
per-as tempting meal as the circum-
staDces would permit. The drunken
husband entered. In few moments six
successive shots rang out upon the ear
ly evening air and neighbors rushed to
the scene to find the floor of the little
cottage bathed in blood, the dead bodies
the room and the brutal husband lying
across the bed gasping in the last agon-
les of death with his hand tightly clasped
about the stock of a new breeehloading
gun. The supper that had beon pre-
pared by Mrs. Bergman was untouched
upon the table and the room showed no
signs of disorder, the work of the murder
having been quickly accomplished and
without struggle Mrs. Bergman, the
wife and mother, was killed first, and
then in quick succession the children.
who were too small to flee from the MUIR
derous assaults of their father, were shot
one by one and their bodies fell to the
floor, one of them across the breast of it's
mother.
COOL AND DELIBERATE MURDER.
Bergman had coolly and deliberately
loaded the gun at each required inter
val and the sixth cartridge, the last of
the third loading, he fired into his own
person. 1t was when his own family lay
before him murdered that he stepped
across the room, fell face forward and
stilled the hand that had already sent
five lives into eternity.
A broken bottle in Berrymans pocket
furnished the first surmise for the cause
underlying the tradegy-a husband had
committed, perhaps, the most sensation
al tragedy in the criminal annals of
Georgia while his brain was fired by
drink.
NOT A LIVING WITNESS.
There was not an eyewitness to tie
enactment of the crime. The words
that passed between husband and wife
prior to the shooting will never be
known. Mrs. Bergman was a comely
industrious young woman. She loved
her husband and had stood his dissipa-
ton with fortitude rarely seen. She
often reproved him for the undue atten-
tton that he paid to another woman in
the neighborhood.
WOMAN BEHIND THE TRAGEDY.
He was absent from his home the
larger part of yesterday; his wife sus-
pected his whereabouts and as he reach
ed home last night probably upbraided
him for hiss conduct. 1t conYulsed him
with angry passion. He snatched the
gun from its rack and the slaughter of
innocent lives was the sequel.
The tracks on the bloody floor would
indicate that he turned to the door to es-
cape; he retraced, stopped and glanced
at the body of the dead fell face for
ward on the nearest couch and then, as
if to at, ne for the bloody crime, ended
lis Hn life.
Bergman was only 80 years old and of
good parentage.
His little children were bright and
playful and at times he seemed to be
ford of them. The oldest was little
girl of and her devotion to her father
has been marked. The youngest child
was babe of a few months only. It
was in the arms of its mother when she
fell and its body probably received the
second shot that was fired. The heavy
load of the gun ploughed through the
little one's person, literally tearing it in
to shreds, and buried itself in the oppo
site wall. The other two children were
aged and d, respectively, and they had
been playing about the home only few
minutes before their little souls were
swept into eternity.
GREAT EXCITEMENT EXISTS.
Ebert, Franklin and Madison counties
are trembling in excitement at the horri-
BILE tragedy and hundreds of people have
flocked to the scene.
The bodies will be buried this after
noon. Mrs Bergman and her four lit
tie children will rest in one grave.
Free Pills
Send your address to Il. E. Bucklen
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