The West Virginian. [volume] (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1914-1974, 1917-05-14
So the Police Investigating
Child's Death in Chicago
Say.
AUTHORITIES PUZZLED
Child-Beauty's Actions As
She Denies Awful Crime
Are Battling.

CHICAGO, May 14.-Has 14-year'
old girl the heart to kill?
Do modern motion pictures and love
novels give children the minds and
emotions of grown.ups?
Scientists, psychologists and veteran
police officials are asking these ques'
lions today, questions arising in the
case of little Doris Anderson, IA, brown
eyed, curly-haired, child beauty of
winesome grace and premature coque'
try, held on suspicion of having shot
to death her 13.year-old chum, Oracle
Hagemann.
Little Doris is like an actress.
In the city Jail the child-beauty play
ed Nazimova, Theda Bara and Mary
Pickford by turns as she answered ques
tions. Cool and calm, able to look
straight into the most piercing eye as
she underwent hour after hour of or.
deal, laughing with a piquant shrug
Of the tiny shoulders, or direct and
hard as steel in denying guilt of muir
der this little child has made scien-
lists of Chicago stand in puzzled won
der.
What influence has made this child
what she is?
Is there in the laughing bud of short
dresses and flowing curls today an
adult mind and psychology grown after
the pattern Of life as 1t is whirled
across the screen of moveland and
woven in the thrills of modern vampire
love novels-both products Of today
that were missing when the mothers
of today's little girls were young.
Does night after night Of vampire
land on screen and between paper COW
ers in the most tender and formative
years Of life make a life after the pat.
tern of that on which it feeds? The
police say it does.
Doris favorite movie characters, the
police say, were Theda Bara, famous
vampire" and w. S. Hart, famous
two.gun man; her favorite literature
that Of vivid love and violent adven'
ture.
do locke like a murderess?" asks
Doris. 81 should think you could tell
by looking at me that l am innocent
And feel innocent"
I'D rather deal with hardened
expert criminal any day than with a
little girl. They're the worst-the
worst kind of people to understand,
says Police Captain Danner.
The two girls were chums, Both
had sweethearts, the authorities say
and there are stories that both loved
the same boy, 14-year-old Reinhardt
Fleck.
"Reiny," as they called him, was a
member of the Mystic Five" a thea
trio band of boys who met in dark
places and talked strange phrases from
the land of melodrama. The two girls
were often admitted to this charmed
circle.
Little Oracle was found with a bull
let through her breast. Dorie says:
"She shot herself. l got her a re
volver. She said she wanted to scare
Reiny."
Back of it all there are the whirring
films, the cheaply printed pages-the
mystery Of what these things do to
sweet little girl who sees too much Of
them. And all around are grave scien
lists trying to answer that moment
GUS question for the sake of other lit
tie girls of 14-and for the sake of lit
tie Doris, too, whose life has sudden
ly brought her to a stage in a police
station where she acts like grown'uE
and talks like grown.up and plays
Theda Bara and Ala Nazimova by
turns before her puzzled elders.