PARENTS KILLED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22094, 27 April 1935, Page 11

PARENTS KILLED

YOUTH'S SHOCKING CRIME CONFESSION IN TEXAS' (Received April 26. 8.45 p.m.) NEW YORK, April 25 A message from Austin, Texas, says an extraordinary confession was made by Howard Pierson, aged 20. He informed the sheriff, Mr. Allen, that he had fatally shot his father, who was an associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court, and his mother, !n order to obtain their, property, which included 17,000 dollars for life insurance.

The sheriff said that the youth and his parents had not lived on amicable terms recently. Pierson, who was on a five-days' holiday from the oil fields where he was employed, took his parents for a drive in a motor-car, and in desolate country lured then from the car on the ■« pretext of showing his mother, who was interested in Indian relics, an old aborigine grindstone. After killing his parents the youth hid their purses, shot and wounded himself in one arm, and raced hysterically back to Austin. There lie declared that robbers had murdered his father and mother and attempted to kill him. The police searched all night for the supposed murderers, but after many hours of questioning Pierson broke down and confessed.