The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1897-09-30
A HORRIBLE SLAUGHTER.
A MOTHER AND HER SIX CHILDREN
SLAIN BY HUSBAND AND
FATHER.
and THEN He KILLED HIMSELF.
Shot the Children While They Were
Asleep, and Then Sent a Bullet
Crashing Into His Own Brain
and Fell Dead.

Carroll, Ia, Sept. 27.-The slaughter
of mother and her six children oc-
CURED at the home of John Blocker, a
farmer living northwest Of here, last
night. After the fiendish or demented
husband and father, at whose hands
they died, completed his bloody work
| by sending a bullet into his own head,
inflicting fatal wound.
The family were prosperous Germans,
and as far as Is known lively happily.
No motive for the tragedy has been dis
closed. Boecker's victims are his wife
and these children. Caroline, aged IA
years; Christine, aged 8; Henry, aged
8; Lizzie, aged g; John, aged 3, and an
infant. All are dead but Henry, and he
can not recover from his wounds
Blocker had an engagement to help q
neighbor thresh this morning, and on
his not putting in an appearance his
brother Henry went to see why he did
not come. The doors of the house were
locked and there were no signs of life
about. Henry tried to get into the
house, but got no response and finally
kicked in the door and came upon
horrible scene. Blocker, with his wife
and baby, slept in a back room, a d the
three corpses lay on one bed. The wife
had been shot in the neck with shot
gun, and the baby had been shot and it's
head crushed with the butt end of a
revolver. The man had bullet hole in
the forehead and by his side was a
Smith and Wesson six-shooter with two
chambers empty.
Upstairs Henry and Lizzie lay on
bed with bullet holes in their foreheads,
the latter dead and the boy still breath
ing. In the opposite corner of the same
room Carolina, Christine and John were
dead, each with a bullet hole in the
forehead
The inquiry will be pushed tomorrow
by the coroner's jury. 1t is undoubted-
ly case of murder and suicide.
The indications are that Blocker first
dispatched his wife with the shotgun,
shooting her in the neck, then using the
then knocking out its brains with the butt
Blocker then went up stairs where the
five children were sleeping and killed
them. He must have used light for his
aim was effective. Blocker evidently re-
loaded the weapon while up stairs Go
ing down stairs he stretched himself be-
side the corpse of his wife and shot him
self. His right hand was hurt by the
powder, showing the rapid use made of
the revolver. The weapon he had Dor
rowed from his brother Henry last
Thursday, remarking that he wanted it to
kill rats in the cellar.
IT was now recalled that Blocker had
since then practiced target shooting with
it, Blocker was "a years old and for
over twenty years lived on the farm. He
has been regarded as prosperous farmer,
and only recently bought a 200-acre farm
a few miles from the old homestead. Yes
terday he attended Catholic services with
his wife and some of the children. Later
in the day he was visited by a neighbor
who says that when he left Boecker's
home in the evening they were seemingly
Il happy family and not an indication of
the awful tragedy few hours later was
given by Blocker or any one of the house
hold. Members of his fathers family said
he had no family troubles, that his
financial affairs were in good shape, and
they can assign no motive for the crime.
On he other hand it is said that John had
disagreed with the old folks and Henry
over the occupancy of the farm on which
John lived, and this is assigned by some
az the cause of the trouble which cul-
minated in murder and suicide.
The family are Germans and highly
respected citizens.