Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-03-21
A FATHERS
AWFUL CRIME
Kansas Man Murdered His Five
Children
AND SET THE HOUSE AFIRE
While the Flames Were Raging He
Rode Away--There Was a Great
Deal Talk of Lynchirg.

NdL., MdTCH GU.-A1
atrocious crime was revealed here to-
uaS When the coroner and his assistants
removed he dead bodies of five little
children from the house occupied by John
Moore, which burned at an early hour. A
coroner's jury investigated the case, and,
IN accordance with the jury's recon-
mendation, Moore, the father of the chit
dren, was arrested on a charge of muir
der. The tragedy has caused much eX-
and there was talk of lynching
the prisoner. However, a lynching is not
looked for. When the firemen and neigh
bors reached the burning house, the
father was the only member of the family
of seven found outside. His actions were
queer and he would not talk. While the
building was still burning and his chill
dren within the burning walls, he took
his horse from his stable and rode away.
When the firemen entered the house,
after having partly quenched the flames,
they found the five children lying side by
side in bed on the floor, all dead but not
badly burned. The dead yere:
CARL aged u.
MARY, aged 10.
PEARL, aged 8.
CHARLES, aged II.
LEE, aged 3 years.
The ]coroner's autopsy held this after
noon develops convincing evidence of an
awful crime. The skull of each child was
deeply indented and from the dents long
fractures extended. All but one of the
children had been stabbed in the neck.
The throat of he little 3-year-old, a
pretty boy, had been slashed so deep that
the spinal column had been severed. 1t
was upon these facts, and the strange
ehavior Of the father, that the authOrt-
ties base their charge of murder.
When Moore was called before the
coroner's jury to testify he pretended to
believe that an exploding lamp had
caused the fire and that his children had
met death in the flames. He testified that
he was awakened from a deep sleep by
the smoke and he found the house afire
all over. 1t was Is minutes he said, be-
fore he recovered his senses and then he
did not try to save his children, because
he knew that they must be dead, as the
fire had started in the room in which they
were sleeping. His riding away from the
fire he explained by stating that his wife
was away from home attending a sick
friend and that he went to tell her OF
their loss. Moore showed little con-
Germ when the jury returned the verdict
charging him with murder.
The family came here from Emporia
about three weeks g and rented the
little two-story house in which the
| tragedy occurred. Mrs. Moore's father,
NJ. w. Franklin, whose family came mere
from EmDoria about the same time,
stated this evening that Moore had al
ways been a silent, morose character, but
that he appeared to have a great attach
ment for his children. OF late, according
to Mr.. Franklin, Moore has been brood
ing over the fact that he was out of work
| and the father-in-laW seems to think that
if Moore committed the crime he must
have lost his reason brooding over his
troubles. Moore, however, seems to be
sane and outside of his actions during
the fire, there has been nothing to bear
out the insanity theory.