The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-10-12
G. w. Moore Tries to Kill Sup
! posed Burglar.
Nan Trying to Force Entrance
to His House.
AN ARREST is MADE.
Police Get Andrew Murphy,
Evidently Insane.
Said That Someone Had Fired
at Him.

% A pistol shot, cry of Don't shoot
again you have hit me- broke the
peaceful slumbers of the residents in
the vicinity of Eleventh street and
Washburn avenue about 2 o'clock this
morning and those who heard the shot
and cry following it shivered in their
night eostums for hour or so longer
waiting for the denuement. A few mo-
ments before the shot was fired Mr..
and Mrs. c. w. Moore were awakened
by someone attempting to remove the
screen from their bed room window.
Mr.. Moore secured his revolver, await
ed for developments and man ap-
preached the same window and again
attempted to open the screen. He fired
point blank at the intruder, and the
scream followed as the man closely fol-
lowed by another ran across the lots
between the Moore home and a vacant
house Just south.
The man entered this house and re-
manned for nearly half an hour while
the man who was with him skulked in
the shade near the Moore home and evil
IDENTIFY searched for something which
had been dropped in the hurried flight
of the pair. The man in the vacant
house who was supposed to be wound
ed left the building and went east to
the corner of Grand and Munson ave-
nue., where he stopped and made an
he was injured.
The other man left by the back gate.
taking a towel with him which had
been left hanging on the clothes line
and was not seen again. A call was
sent to the police station for officers
and the patrol wagon started for the
scene oe the trouble at once. Just as
the wagon turned the corner at Tenth
and Washburn avenue they saw man
running north and overhauled him. He
could give no account of himself or tell
where he lived but said that he had
been trying to get into his own home
-I,1r, co, -I,n fto fr,cf 40
shot at him.
At the police station he gave the name
of Andrew Murphy and said that he is
a switchman but could not tell where
he lived or who had shot at him. 1t
then developed that he is insane and |
today he wah taken to the county Jail |
where he will be tried for his sanity. !
He was not wounded.
The window through which the shot |
was flied was raised slightly but |
round hole in the screen shows the !
course taken by the bullet intended for :
the intruder. He is unable to tell who :
and says that if there was anyone that |
he must have escaped Early in the |
evening two men were seen in the |
neighborhood and one of them was in |
sisting on entering a house a block |
north of the place where the shooting !
occurred while his companion begged |
him not to telling him that someone |
lived there and that it was not his |
home.
There are no blood stains about the |
window but the vacant house just north |
of the Moore home shows that it was |
entered during the night by some one |
and undoubtedly it was the crazy man |
Murphey who ina gined that he lived |
at the Moore home.
Mrs. Samuel Ferguss who lives on |
Grand avenue almost directly back of |
the Moore home saw the man leave the |
vacant house and run north to the |
street light where he attempted to To- |
cate the wound which he supposed he |
had received He ran north through a. |
small patch of corn and it was near |
here that Murphy was picked up by the |
patrol wagon loaded with officers who |
were on the way to the scene in re- |
Spouse to q telephone cal.
Mr.. Moore who works for the INDIE |
pendent Telephone company tells about |
the night as does his wife andNsaid: II |
did not shoot to kill but aimed low in
the hopes of wounding the man who |
was trying to get in. I might have shot |
lot but my wife begged me not to and |
we waited for the arrival of the police |
believing that they would find the man
in the vacant house and ZouSded.
He screamed that he was shot when
fired and as he ran across the lots be-
tween my house and the vacant house |
which he entered he seemed to be stag
gering or liTnping. / guess that the man
arrested by the police is the man who
tried to get into my house. The fact |
that he Is crazy makes it seem all the
more plausible as he kept up con-
tinual string of talk from the time that
we first heard hi muntil 1 fired at him.
1--WE were naturally indignant when
the police failed to show up after they
had said that they had arrested the
man, but have just learned that they
arrested the man while hey were on
the way out to my house. I am sure
that there were two men at or near the
window as one of them ran through the
back yard and the other one north in
plain view of the window in our Sleep
ing room.