The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-09-29
SLAIN IN THEIR BEDS.
e,iohtful Tragedy Committed by
an Iowa Farmer.
ELLIS WIFE, CHILDREN AND SELF.

when the Terrible Crime Was Discovered
o,,y the Eldest Son, Out of Family of
-. Was Found Alive-After Murder
,,o His Family the Desperate Man Sends
nuIlet Through His Temple and Dies
resides His wife's Corpse.
CARROLL Ia, Sept. 29.-John Becker.
farmer living eight miles northwest
% This city, shot and killed his wife and
Go of his children. He tried to kill his
eldest son. but the boy is still living
rr,er he ally down by the side Of his
.,,,,rdered wife and baby and shot him
. . He was still liviniSSy Then the terri
Mo tragedy was discovered Monday
morning but he was unconscious.
Anparently happy and on the best of
terms with his family. Becker had been
last seen on his farm. He was not moody
or morose. He acted like a kind father
70 his six boys and girls. He was not
threatened with financial disaster or
starvation. what it was that changed
him from a loving father to wholesale
murderer may never he known. The ter
rble crime was committed between sun
down and dawn. The farm is isolated
and the shooting was unheard.
Dragged the Coffee.
John Booker must have contemplated
numbering his wife and children early i'm
the evening ard prepared for it by drug
ging the coffee. The victims were found
dead IN bed. ard it was evident they had
passed from sleep to death. Some of the
children must have been aroused by the
shooting Of the others unless they had
been drugged by the murderer.
John Blocker had offered to help
neghbor to thrash Monday morning.
When he did not appear at o'clock his
brother Henry, went over to the farm.
He found the doors locked and no sign
of life about He had to break in one of
the doors In the back room the broth
er found John Becker and his wife and
the baby lying on the bed bathed in
blood The wife and baby were dead.
Becker had taken a shotgun and fired
into the neck of his wife as she slept
Mrs Blocker died without a struggle
and without the knowledge that her
children were to meet a dreadful end at
the hands Of their father
Slaughter of the Innocents.
Blocker set the gun against the wall
and seized revolver and sent a bullet
into the forehead of the baby as it lay
on its dead mothers breast. Not salts
fed with this he struck the infant on
the head with the butt of the revolver
to make sure it was dead.
The farmhouse is story and a half
frame building. Upstairs the other
children slept. The noise Of the shoot
ing had not aroused them. The murderer
Of his wife and baby must have carried
light or he waited until daylight for
his aim was effective and the bullets en-
tered the same place on each child. He
went up the 'creaking stairway and
picked out his children deliberately and
shot them, each in the forehead. John
Becker did not have to beat In the
heads Of his other children with the re-
volver to keep them quiet. They were
fast asleep when the bullets entered
their brains, and none woke up to beg
mercy from the father. Caroline, aged
10; Christine, aged ., and John. aged 3.
slept in one bed in the corner of the
room
Shot Caroline Twice.
The father was not apparently salts
fed with his aim when he shot Caro-
line, for he sent two bullets through
her forhead. The eldest boy, Henry,
aged s, and Lizzie, aged 6. slept in the
same ROOM The father bent over the
children and shot one of them through
forehead iG MT "