NAKED MANIAC ARMED WITH AXE

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 174, 26 July 1935, Page 7

NAKED MANIAC ARMED WITH AXE

Midnight Attack on Front

Door

SHOT BY HOUSEHOLDER IN SELF-DEFENCE

United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Thursday, 9.50 p.m. NEW YORK, July 24.

That invariably effective clement of a thriller, namely a madman on the rampage, found its counterpart in real life to-day when Burnett Ward, aged -12, in the small town of Montrose found a naked maniac with au axo hacking his front door down in the middle of the night, lie was compelled to kill the intruder before the police could arrive. The slain man was Maurice Fitzgerald, aged 34, an ox-convict with a record of treatment in au insane asylum. He appeared before the Ward’s home at two in the morning and wakened Mrs. Ward with wild cries of “water! water.” .She was tcrribly frightened and screamed for help. Her husband tried to get the man to leave by telling him to go to a well nearby and then telephoned for the police. By this time the maniac had found an axe and was literally buttering his way into the house. Mr. Ward secured a shotgun and fired one shot through a window in an effort to frighten the intruder. He was then compelled to shoot him dead just as the State troopers arrived.