Worcester County MA Archives News.....Mad Mother Kills Babies. March 30, 1903
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ma/mafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Linda Blum-Barton http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000645 March 20, 2006, 7:59 pm

The Weekly Constitution, Atlanta, Ga. March 30, 1903
Heads of Little Ones Crushed in With an Ax.
Sturbridge, Mass., March 23.--A frenzied mother in the little hamlet of 
Fiskdale, after cutting off every means of escape by fastening windows and 
doors, crushed in the heads of her four little children today, threw their 
bodies into a closet, scattered oil over them and herself and then, after 
setting all on fire, closed her awful work and her own life by cutting her 
throat.

It was Mrs. Peter Burke, the wife of a machinist in an auger factory, who 
committed the fearful deed, and her victims were Lilla, six years; William, 
five years, Louise, one and one-half years, and May Rose, five months old, 
respectively.

That the woman had previously shown signs of mental derangement seems to be 
admitted, but that it should have taken a violent form was not even thought of 
by her husband, now completely prostrated, or her own relatives.  The family 
have lived in Fiskdale about a year and a half, coming there from Worcester, 
while Mrs. Burke is a native of New Hampshire, with relatives in Somersworth. 

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ma/worcester/newspapers/madmothe2gnw.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mafiles/

File size: 1.7 Kb