GRIM FAMILY TRAGEDIES

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1929, Page 11

GRIM FAMILY TRAGEDIES

DESERTED HUSBAND KILLS

MAN DECAPITATES FIVE CHILDREN

HAD SPENT HIS WIFE’S SAVINGS

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 10.10 p.m. - Seattle, Dec. 4. Theobald Holmes, a farmer, aged 30, shot dead his mother-in-law and himself to-day. His wife was wounded. ' His wife, aged 23, left him a week ago, so he called at her mother’s home in-an attempt at reconciliation. To-day he traded his pet dog for a rifle with which to enforce his wife to return. She declined.

When Theobald stopped shooting his mother-in-law lay dead. His wife was shot, but will recover. The husband himself was so badly wounded that he died.

Los Angeles was the scene of a similar tragedy. A truck-driver confessed he had killed and decapitated his family of five children because he feared their mother/whose savings'he had spent, would kill him.