River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-11-02
The Little Hero of Domestic Tragedy
Held In a Mountain Prison
In Kentucky.
HAS EIGHT BURLY MURDERERS AS COMPANIONS
Boy of Tender Years Whose Only Crime Was
Protection of His Mother from Murderous
Attack of a Drink Crazed Father
Locked Up Pending Action of
Laws Slow Course.

Beattyville, Ky.-"My son was
right. He should have killed me-"
Thus spoke the father of little Rob-
ert Gross on his death-bed, as the
sheriff took charge of the child who
had fired the shot which ultimately
resulted in his fathers death.
II loved my mamma, and my papa
was trying to kill her, SO l killed
him!"
Thus spoke the boy murderer,
child of 13, as his solemn eyes filled
with tears and his rounded shoulders
heaved under the stress of his emo
ton, when he was interviewed by the
writer.
The tragic story of this child'S life,
who is now incarcerated in the Lee
county Jail, at this city, is one of
incredible sadness. Reared in the
mountains, knowing only hard work
and loneliness, his baby heart had
turned over to the mother, for whom
he finally murdered his father. His
young mind clouded over with memo
ries of his fathers debauches, it was
only natural that he should Law
ish all the fondness of his affection
ate nature upon the mother who had
protected him from the cruelty of one
who knew not tenderness.
With Eight Murderers.
Little Robert Gross is the most pa,
thetic inquire now confined in the Lee
county Jail. Here in this bleak prison
house are eight men, all of whom
have the mark of Cain branded on
their brows. Two of them are young
men, not yet 80; one of them even
younger than this, and, with the ex-
ception of this child, who is of such
tender years, the rest all men of ma.
ture age.
What impulse but that of protec-
ton, what impulse but that of fair
fight would prompt the boy to cry
out: "Let my mamma be-let her be,
say, else shall kill you first?" For
is was thus little Robert Gross plead
ed with the drunken man whom he
knew as father, even as he saw the
inhuman monster advance toward the
helpless and wretched woman who
bore his name, ere he finally, in an
agony of desperation, fired the fatal
shot which lay low the would-be MUIR
derer.
1t requires all the wild setting OF
this mountain home high set in the
Kentucky hills, and all the fierce at
mospnere which surrounded the trag-
edy to bring out in detail the pitiful
facts attendant on this murder of a
g. Nv Aa1 n.
ert Gross opened his eyes to sorrow
almost at has birth, and lived out
his small, narrow life with no light
shedding its rays upon his little world
except that OF a great love for a
mother who crooned him to sleep in
arms that never tired of the young
form close-pressed against her .throb-
bling breast. Her loving heart often
beat wildly in fear and trembling
against the Homecoming of father
who lost his reason ere he left the
towns confines by imbibing of a
liquid which had been made against
the laws commands in the illicit stills
of the Kentucky mountains.
Tender-Hearted Mother.
The story of the tragedy runs thus:
Robert Gross mother had given to
her aged and feeble father a little OF
the store which lay within her larder,
never counting on the parsimonious
manner in which her husband would
grudgingly object to the generosity.
In fact, she had but given to the poor
old man a pound of freshly churned
butter which she, herself, had labored
over making, and when nightfall had
settled down over the mountains. and
the purple shadows lay close to the
hills, turned to her household duties,
and soon had set the family table.
forgetting the gift. With no thought
of the trouble to come. she even sang
about her work, and little Robert sat
By the CRATE log fire, wearied from