OBIT: Mrs. Frank DOLL, 1907, Airville, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Abby Bowman

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/york/
_______________________________________________ 

Five-Year-Old Child Kills His Mother.

Mrs. Frank Doll was shot dead Saturday morning by her 5-year-old son, Ernest 
Doll, who playfully pointed his father's gun at his mother.  The tragedy 
occurred at the Doll home, in Airville, York county, while Mrs. Doll's husband 
was away.  "I shoot you!" shouted the child, standing in the middle of the 
kitchen floor with his father's gun, when Mrs. Doll returned after a few 
moments' absence.  "You do?" said the mother, with mock alarm, as she had often 
done when the child played with the empty gun.  Child and mother shouted with 
merriment.  In the next second there was a report.  The mother dropped dead with 
her head shattered by the gun discharge, and the child ran crying and screaming 
from the house.  Mr. Doll testified at the inquest that he had left the gun 
unloaded on the kitchen table, together with a box of loaded shells.  The child 
is supposed to have managed to load the gun in his parents' absence, and the 
jury returned a verdict of accidental death.  Mrs. Doll, who was of middle age, 
is survived by her husband and three children.

New Oxford Item, May 30, 1907