The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-10-03
Brother Returns Home and Finds His
Sister Still Alive and Able to
Discuss the Affair.
LIST OF SUNDAY TRAGEDIES
Roy SHOOTS HALF-WITTED BROTH
ER TO DEFEND HIS MOTHER.
MurfeesbOro killing, in Which Four
Men Fall on Account of a Fam
lily Quarrel.

PITTsBURG, Oct. 2. = Bertha Beilstein
killed her mother to-day and later put four
bullets into her own body, from the effects
of which she cannot recover. The only ex-
planation the girl has given for her deed
were these words: II was tired of life. 1t
held no pleasure for me. l wanted to die,
and did not want my mother to live and
fret over my death. For that reason 1
killed her."
The crime, which was committed some
time in the early morning was not discov-
cred until late in the day, when a son Of
the murdered woman came home. He found
her body cold in death. A bullet wound at
the right side of the nose told the story.
The bed was covered with blood. and there
was every indication that death had ensued
some hours before In a room adjoining
that of the mother the son found the body
of his sister. She was lying in a pool CT
blood, and in her right hand was clutched a
revolver. the implement of destruction. An
examination of Mrs. Beilstein showed that
she had been shot three times with 49,
caliber revolver One shot had entered at
the right side of the nose and had taken
a downward course through the neck and
had cut the seventh cervicle vertebrae.
This, the physicians say must have caused
instant death. Another shot had entered the
right breast and the third had passed
through the right groin
An examination of the daughters wounds
convinced the physicians that her death
was a question of only short time. A
bullet from .3S-caliber revolver had torn
its way through the right temple and passed
out at the top of the head. From both the
entrance and exit of the wound the brains
were oozing. bullet from the same sized
revolver had been fired into her left breast
near the heart and she had also shot her
self twice in the stomach with revolver
of % caliber.
To one of the brothers. during period of
consciousness, the girl told OF the shooting
of her mother. She said that as she went
into the room with the revolver in her
hand she had decided to kill herself and
knew that the shock of her death would
break her mothers heart, and concluded
death would be preferable to her sufferings
on EARTH Her mother, she said, was sleep
ing when she went into the room. She
placed the revolver close to her breast and
fired. On the report of the pistol her mother
sat uD in bed and said to her: Birdie,
what are you doing?" The answer was an
other shot, which, she said, was fired at
her mothers face. This was evidently the
shot which entered Mrs. Beilstein's face
and resulted in her instant death. One
more wound was inflicted afterward.
Frederick Beilstein the father of the fam
lily, was one of the best-known residents of
Allegheny. He died suddenly in December
last from apoplexy, and since then Birdie.
VINO was twenty years old, is said to have
lost all of her youthful beauty. From a
light-hearted, happy girl she became a
quiet. depressed, despondent woman. The
friends of the family think she was tenn
porarily insane when she committed the
crime.