The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-08-06
son, AZ, Stays
AGED FATHER
FOR SPANKING
Strongest Man in Grafton,
VT, Is Killed in Family
Row.
PRISONER STAYS CALM
Giant Members of Kent
Tribe Have Curse of
Murder.
Bp United Press

Bp United Press
BELLOWS FALLS, VT, Aug. g.
The curse of murder that runs in
the blood Of the giant members of
the Kent family has broken out
again. This time over whether a
74-year-old man has the right to
spank 42-year-old son.
George Kent, AZ, sat in the county
Jail at Newfane, Monday night and
confessed he killed his father, who,
despite his extreme age, was known
as the strongest man in the village
of Grafton.
It was the third murder in the
family in seventeen years and the
second case of patricide.
Llewellyn Kent, the father, died
Monday night.
Claims Self Defense
He was always beating me up"
the younger Kent said. Il was al
ways afraid of him. He was ugly.
The old man thought he could keep
on licking me just the same as he
always did when was boy"
The quarrel between father and
son started over the disappearance
OF a few eggs from the formers
chicken coop
Llewellyn Kent charged his
daughter r-in-law with stealing the
eggs.
During the argument George Kent
entered the farmhouse where they
all lived.
Llewellyn Kent told his son to
leave the farm and never come back,
according to witnesses.
George Kent said his father then
attempted to beat him and that he
ran into another room and got a
25- caliber pistol.
They scuff1ed and witnesses said
George pulled the trigger three
times, the first bullet going wild
and the second and third striking
Llewellyn Kent in the head.
A brother of the dead man was
killed in Wardsboro, VT, few years
ago by his son, Fred Kent, who
stabbed his father to death with a
fish spear.
A son of Llewellyn Kent was
hanged for the murder of Della
Conden, whom he chopped to death
with a meat cleaver at Wallingford,
Va.
Men Are Giants
Both Llewellyn Kent and his
brother George were well over six
feet tall. Both were known as strong
men, the former the strongest in
the farming country surrounding
Grafton.
Kent, arraigned Monday night,
pleaded not guilty and waived ex-
animation and reading of the COM
plaint and was held without bail for
trial in the Windham county court.
Kent seemed unperturbed over the
killing. Rather, jail officials said,
he continued to express his resent
ment at his fathers treatment.
State Detective Edwin G. Brown
said:
"All I can say now is there is evi-
dence that the murder was the cul-
mination of long bitterness between
father and son. The egg stealing
episode was purely incidental, but
it was just the spark to set off the
tragedy"
Crippled StepmOther
"The old man was always ugly, B"
Brown quoted the son as saying.
He drove a team over my STEP
mother, his second wife, and hurt
her back so she became a cripple.
She left him because he was so
cruel, and always drinking, and she
got divorce ten years ago"
But the elder Kent. undismayed
by the divorce, went to the home OF
his former wife and, according TO
the son, used his great physical
strength to establish himself there.
He lived on her-a cripple-ever
since" Kent told Brown. ''He
seemed to think everything be-
longed to him, but it was hers. My
wife and I went there to live last
spring to take care Of my STEP
mother"