A Dastardly Crime.

Hastings Standard, Issue 45, 18 June 1896, Page 4

A Dastardly Crime.

Richard Klac-itke, a (■>. rman carpenter, thirty-eight years old, who went to the I'nited States four years ago, occupied a small house in Chicago in company with his aged fatbi-r and mother, his wife, and his three little girls. These people wore not destitute. Klaettke owned the house in pan, the larder was well stocked, and there was money enough on hand to supply the family's wants for a month or two. But Klaettke had become an anarchist and an orator of the drinking saloons, lie was unwilling to work, and his wife had been compelled to go out and earn the money which his own labor should have procured while he was cursing the rich or decorating the wall* of his rooms with red i'.e.g- and portrait-; of the three anarchist murderer* whom Governor Altgeld pardoned. One day a neighbor obtained for him a job of carpenter work, and urged him to undertake it on the following morning. The pr.~sp--et was so distasteful that Klaettke d"ternur;ed to kill every member of his family with out deiay. In the dead of night, while all were sleeping, he approached them one after another and murdered all, shooting each victim in the head--the good father, who had falls-n a-leep with a prayer book in his hand, the mother who had watched over him, his faithful and industrious wife, and the three handsome lutie girl \ one of whom was recovering from a siighi ilhiesi which had al^fi.u I Lie anxious and weary wife. TL ih' e'Uk; killed himself in the same way. and at daybreak the neighbor, coainv t>tAe this wretch to his new job o» >\ •!•'». f ct'id the iktle house tenanted b. - - co-eves.