GIRL’S “JAZZ” CRIME.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16671, 26 February 1925, Page 6

GIRL’S “JAZZ” CRIME.

MOTHER SHOT DEAD. NEW YORK, .Tan. 16.—“ Toll the world I was suffering from jazz madness—that is why I killed mother by shooting her. These are jazz days, and everything is topsy-turvy in my brain.” Such, in brief, was the. confession made in gaol 10-day l'*.V Dorothy Ellingson, a lti-yenr-old ‘‘flapper,” who killed her mother because the latter tried to cure her of her love for the night, life of San Francisco. “1. did it,” said Dorothy, a very good-looking girl, ‘‘because mother scolded me and sometimes beat, me for going out. with men. You know,” she added, “father left home after a row with, mother, who scolded him because I stayed out laic nt jazz parties. I wanted excitement, arid here 1 am.” It was after a particularly severe scoldmg for staying out until four o'clock on Tuesday morning that Dorothy took her brother’s pistol, tired one shot, and left, the liouse. Two (lays followed of dancing, drinking, and motor car rides, until the police came and took her. In a diary seized by the police there was found a frank confession of Dorothy’s wild life. In it she complains, “Mother is dreadfully old-fashioned and strict. 1 am not allowed even to have boy friends call upon me.” “This is the life” she wrote, some weeks later, after a particularly hectic, night, with “the gang,” “a wonderful time, pep, jazz, gin, and love.” In August she wrote. “I won ’t stand for another beating. Henceforth I’ll do as I please and love where I please.” Dorothy’s lather and brother both refuse to engage counsel to defend her at the forthcoming trial. “We want to see her hang,” the father said bitterly, declaring, “I tried to correct the girl and get her to mend her ways. Now she must suffer.”