AN EXTRAORDINARY CRIME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11046, 25 February 1898, Page 2

AN EXTRAORDINARY CRIME.

The New Yotk correspondent of the Argcs wrote ori t'a<>2ud January : —" Next week, in the city of O.mden, near Philadelphia,'*,yoanjr<mannamed Eli Shaw, of good family andsacial con-, neefcious, who was a few months ago about to marry a charming girl of considerable social prominence, will be tried for the. murder of his mother and grandmother. This ig a vary curious case. Shaw lived with "his mother and grandmother, tioth of whom were widows.; la October last he was recovering from an attack of typhoid fever,' <2aring; whichhi* mother had been his most , faithful nurse. They slept in separate rooms oa! the third floor of the house t which Wag situated in n populous part of the town. Eloctric cars pass through-toe street, and electric lamps illu>yunsto it. Hi* grandmother's room w*s on the uecond floor. Just, before dawn one morning tha young man threw open the street door, and ran out, crying ' Murder!' He then fell in a faint, apparently from weakness and terror." ' A policeman was near at-hand, and be weut through the house at once. The mother* waa foudd dying in a. rear room on the second floor, and the grandmother in the adjoining fronfc room was in the same' condition. Each had been shot in the head. Sbaw told a story about burglars. He had heard them r b*t3 awakened his mother, and, followat! hy her, had gone down to the second floor". There the intruders, interrupted while gilh«ring- plunder, bad shot his mother. A match he had lighted went out, and in the darkness he went down to the street for help. But the officers foumi tracks of blood on the third floor, and iv a chimney on the third floor a revolver, two barrels of which hud been diioharged, and 10 the young man was arrested. At the double funeral there was seen on the coffins a pillow of immortelles, bearing the inscription ' Molt 1?? and Grandmother.' This was the last tribute oE the son and grandson, who was prPE-3Ot f guarded by two policemen. At the close of thfr services the youug man called loudly upon Gq£: to protect him, and then, falling on his Uusea by the side of the corpses, said in a brokec voice, « Mother ! Mother ! Tell them Ilibt'lara innocent.' It ig difficult to believe that he Sv guilty, bat (he circumstantial evidonce was sufficient to warrant his indictment by a erand jury." - ,