Evening star., 1940-04-06
Girls Description
Of Quadrup|e Staying
Gains Credence
Mothers Wrists Found
SIoshed; Father
Defends Daughter
By the Associated Press.

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LOS ANGELES, April 6.-Eleven-
year-old Chloe Davis, unruff1ed by
a quadruple Staying before her eyes
and by two days of questioning by
police and physicians, has con-
founded criminologists who would
have blamed her for the deaths.
Chloe. her haxen hair in pigtails,
told such startling tale, when her
mother, Mrs. Lolita Davis, her two
sisters and her little brother were
found dead in their home Thurs
day, that authorities could not at
first accept it.
Chloe said her mother hammered
the three children almost to death,
attempted to kill Chloe and then
tried to set my hair on fire and then
made me hit her with a hammer
until she stopped breathing"
Mothers Wrists Slashed.
Later, said Police Capt. Edwards,
Chloe elaborated on the story, say
ing that after her mother stopped
talking" she (Chloe) also struck the
boy to make him quit groaning."
The two girls died after being taken
to a hospital
Chloe also added, day later, that
her mother had forced her to bring
a razor with which the woman could
slash her, wrists.
Just before Chloe remembered
about" the azor-slashing, officers
learned for the first time-from an
autopsy report-that Mrs. Davis
died not of head wounds, but of
bleeding from cut arteries of the
arms.
Capt. Edwards at one point in the
questioning said he was prepared to
accuse Chloe of all of the killings.
Now he and other authorities have
come to believe the girls story in its
essential points.
F. Barton Davis, the husband and
father. insisted "Chloe didn't do it,
no matter what the police think. If
she did, her mother made her do it.
She believed she had the power Of
demons"
Got Razor Blade for Mother.
The county autopsy surgeons post
mortem examinations disclosed that
while all three children-Daphne,
10; Deborah Ann, 7, and Marquis,
3, died of skull fractures, Mrs. Davis
death was caused by loss of blood
from cuts on both wrists.
Homer Cross, deputy police chief,
said Chloe told him her mother
was lying on mattress which had
been dragged into the hallway, and
that her mother told her to get
razor.
"Chloe said she got a razor blade
from the cupboard and gave it to
her mother" Cross related. II
asked her if she saw her mother
slash her wrists, and she said: No,
I didn't look at it,"
Believes Child Is Truthful.
In spite of the autopsy surgeons
findings, Chloe still maintains her
original and oft-repeated story:
That after her mother had attacked
the other children, she. at her moth
er's request, beat on Mrs. Davis
head until the handle of the ham,
mer broke.
"I believe that in the main Chloe
is telling the truth" concluded Dr.
Paul De River, police psychiatrist.
"Her actions on the day of the slay-
ings were those of an abnormal
child. Any normal child would have
screamed and run from the house
when she awoke, as she says she did.
to find her brother and sisters dead
and her mother apparently de-
mented.
"My observations of Chloe in the
last two days mark her, in my opin-
ion, as cool, collected and firm in
her opinions. She even corrects her
father on points of the tragedy"
Capt. Edwards said a petition
would be filed Monday to have
Chloe made a ward of the Juvenile
Court. An inquest into the slayings
was set for next Tuesday morning.
Under California law, child un-
der IA found guilty of murder is in
carcerated in a correctional institu-
ton until he reaches the age of 81,
when he would be released.