Arizona republican., 1902-11-19
MOTHER KILLS SON
 THEN KILLS HERSELF
An Awful TregGdy Enacted
 Here on Monday Night
Was Not Discovered Till Late Yester- day Afternoon - Mrs. E. Helen Clark, Insane from Real or Fancied Illness, Eods Somewhat Eventful Career.

Mrs. F. Helen, wife of Albert A. Clark, sometime Monday night, shot and killed her ten year old son. Alan Orford and then shot herself, both presumably dying instant ly. The family lived at No. 42S South Center street and the tragedy was first discovered between 8 and o'clock yes teEday afternoon by MT. Clark who had just returned from Mesa where he went the evening before on business.
 He went directly home from the NJ 6 r. depot and found the house locked up Going directly to a rear door he found an envelope fastened on the in side of the screen on which was writ- ten Returning Soon" Knowing that she had been suffering a little of a liver 1 trouble and had a severe cold he thought she might be at the office of Dr. Swetnam Uho ha- been prescribing for her, though iron he manner in which the house was locked up he says ! he had a suspicion from the time he i first arrived that all was not well. In i fact he feared someone had entered the house and murdered her. He went at l once to the office of Dr. Swetnam and l learned she had not been there so re- turning home he aroused the neighbors and one of them entered the house where terrible scene was presented.
 On the bed in a little room off the sitting room lay Mrs. Clark, clothed in a dressing gown, and in her right hand ! was held a 32-calibre revolver. There were TO wounds appearing on her body but an examination by Dr. Plath who | was summoned. showed that she had ! shot herself in the mouth, the bullet lodging just beneath the scalp. By heI side on his right side and facing hei ! lay her son Alan, clothed in his night robe, and were it not for a large quan- tity of blood which had escaped through nose end clotted on his face and the bedclothes below, he would have look ed as though peacefully sleeping. Ar examination showed that he had been shot under the chin the bullet travelling upward. though like the mother it did not leave he head.
 Coroner Burnett was summoned ana | impancling a sGry the remains wer- viewed and the effects Of the dead wo- man and the family were taken not of. Among them was sSS2.11 in cash S5OOO of which WIS enclosed in a letter addressed to a gentleman il Los Angeles in return of loan. Ther, were in her purse a number of cards addresses and other little things oi triiing value.
 On her table she left a number 1i letters. one to her husband ,one to hei mother in England and others to otheI parties directing the disposition she de 1 sired made of certain effects. Tn. letters were badly plotted and indicat- ed that the writer was laboring under great mental strain. The letter tI her husband was as follows:
 Dear Albert: After you went out il seemed something snapped in my head I feel mad I nave felt worse thar even you think. Forgive me and for get me. Will you kindly pay for my trunks to go to Mrs. Woolsey, Eye Suffolk. England. Oh. forgive me,
 am mad. Oh God forgive me and hell you. l am better dead than a lunatic Forgive and forget your poor mad wife Helen.
 The letter to her mother was as fol. lows:
 Mrs. Fl. Woolsey, Eye. Suffolk. Eng land. Dear Mother: This may be my last letter. My brain has given way Alan and I will both go. Do mol | grieve. we shall be at rest anyway. ]. have suffered tortures of hell this last three months and have not strength tC walk but with assistance. Divide what I left fairly for Gods sake. My husband loves me and is the kindest possible Write 172 Queen street ant tell him Alan and I are dead, brains blown out. He did not want to have