The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1914-04-17
Victim of Shooting Was Mar
ried to a Vermont Man
in January, 1913
HER PARENTS WERE
IN THE NEXT ROOM
When the Fatal Shot Was Fired-Meas-
urement of the Girls Arms Shows
She Could Not Have Committed
Suicide as Reported.


NORWAY, Me, April IA war
rant for an arrest in connection with
the death of Mrs. Ethel Nj. Cummings,
who was shot at the home of her par
ents, Mr. and Mrs. William Adams, ut
Albany on Tuesday, has been issued at
/ South Paris, but the authorities decline
i to give any intimation as to the iden-
| tity of the person named in it.
/ w. o. rockingham, high sheriff of
Oxford county, said that he did not
know when an arrest would be made.
The warrant was based on the develop
ments of the inquest by Coroner A. =.
Bassett of Norway. The jury called by
the coroner reported that Mrs. Cum
mings came to her death at the hands
of an unidentified person.
/ Coroner Bassett went to the Adams
home and took impressions Of the
hands of the dead woman. These will
be compared with the hand prints on
the barrel of the shot gun found near
the body, and from which the shot
which killed her is believed to have
been fired.
4 In this way the coroner expects to
determine whether the young woman
handled the weapon herself and com
mitted suicide, as was at first supposed.
Measurements of the girl s arm are
said to, have indicated that she could
not have pulled the trigger of the
weapon with her fingers while the muE-
zle was in her mouth.
Parents in-the Next Room.
The young woman 5 parents said
that they were both in the room next
to the sitting room in which she was
killed when the shot was fred, but that
they thought the report was due TO the
bursting OF something in the cellar OF
kitchen, and did not ut once invest
gate it.
Mrs. Adams said Ethel had been I'M
1 happy because her father had withheld,
his consent to her marriage - months
ago to Marshall Cummings. She show
] ed letter which Ethel had written he
4 Just before the marriage asking he
i mother to assist her in obtaining tn
) consent of her father TO the ceremony
Ny happiness depends upon father
: consent, = the girl had written. Thi
consent was never given, according t
Mrs Adams After her marriage, Ethe
spent several weeks at a time at he
parents home, but did not receive he
husband there.
Her SISTER says she met nm IN IN
| woods back of the house several time
and was making preparations to rejoi
| her husband at Bethel.
Il The strongest bit of circumstanti;
levidence to disprove she committed su
| eide was discovered The charge {
shot went slightly downward throug
| the tongue when it entered the mont
the teeth and upper part of the ia
| showing no shot marks. The vertebr;
were ground to pieces and the base {
the skull was shattered by the cxpl
sion.
| Had the girl held the gun the sh
would have gone upward, 1t w
thought. Neither of the hands Shove
the least sign of powder burns
| smoke Her arm was u inches Ion
- aud the gun barrel is 27i3 inches,
- that She could not have killed herse
- unless she had a stick or other artic
with which to have pushed the trgg'
according to the officials, who were u
9 able to find anything of this sort
: the room.
Mrs. Cummings was married IN Jan
airy, 1913, to Sherman Cummings
Ae Groton, Vt.