AN OLD MAN MURDERS HIS GRANDSON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12070, 13 September 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN OLD MAN MURDERS HIS GRANDSON.

A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY.

A terrible affray was reported to the Goole police recently, as a result of which an old man named Thomas Ibbotson, 70 years of age, was later in the day charged, before, the Goole justices, with the wilful minder of his grandson, Walter Morley, aged months.

It appears that Ibbotson had for the past two years lived with his son-in-law and daughter, Fred, and Sarah Ann Motley, at. No. 7. Newport-street, a respectable street in the West Ward of Goole. Ibbotson has been of a somewhat irritable disposition of' late, the result being that a good deal of unpleasantness has occurred.

On a recent Sunday morning some words were bandied between the parties, which resulted in Morley turning Ibbotson out of the house. Morley, who is by trade a boiler-maker, went out in the evening for the purpose of going to work, and it appears Ibbotson returned to the house during the night.

Mrs. Morley, with her infant child, slept until about two o'clock, when she was awakened by hearing someone coming into her bedroom. She at first thought it was her husband who had returned from work. but upon seeing it was Ibbotson she asked, " What do you want?"

Ibbotson replied, "I have come to kill you both," whereupon he exhibited a large iron spanner or screwkey. about eighteen inches to two feet long, with a sharp head at the end, giving it the. appearance of an iron hammer. With this he aimed a blow at the head of his daughter, but she evaded it, and, springing out of bed, she immediately grappled with her father to try, if possible, to prevent him from doing any further injury.

He shook her off, however, and immediately went for the child, who was lying upon the bed, dealing it a blow upon the head with the weapon. Mrs. Morley, in a very excited condition, ran downstairs and raised an alarm.

Information was given to Police-Con-stable Setiife, who went immediately to the house, where, upon the floor of the front bedroom, he found the body of the dead child, lying near the foot of the bed. Prisoner has been committed for trial at Leeds Assizes,