DASTARDLY DADS FROM THE ARCHIVES (Fitchburg, Massachusetts - 1913)

Father ERNEST MOSCHNER was behind this murder-suicide of his four children in 1913. Note that the father was labeled "insane" by the police, but the evidence suggests that his actions were coolly planned and executed. For a man who was supposedly incapable of working because of tuberculosis, Moschner was remarkably nimble in hunting his children down like dogs.

From the archives of the New York Times, April 15, 1913.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B01E4D8103CE633A25756C1A9629C946296D6CF

FATHER KILLS 4 CHILDREN.

Pursues Them Through House and Shoots One by One, Then Himself.

FITCHBURG, Mass.--April 13.--Ernest Moschner killed his four children and then himself by shooting at his home on Ross Stone St. to-day. The police believe that continued ill-health had made him insane. Moschner was 35 year of age. The children were Elsie, aged 12; Myrtle, aged 11; Norman, aged 8; and Ernest, aged 6.

They, it is believed, were playing in the yard when their father called them to his room on the second floor. There, judging from the marks of the muddy shoes, the police think he lined the children up in front of the bed. Elsie was killed in this room. The bullet entered the head near the left ear, causing instant death. The body of Ernest, the youngest child, was found on the floor of a closet in the front room of the same floor. Myrtle and Norman evidently fled down stairs and Myrtle sought vain refuge in a closet. Her father was too quick for her. She fell dead just as she stumbled over the threshhold.

From appearances only one of the children had any chance to defend himself. Norman, the elder boy, was found dead in the coal bin. His clothes and the club beside him showed that he had fought for his life.

Moschner, after killing Norman, evidently retraced his steps, first covering the boy's body with rags and boards. Halting at the closet on the first floor he covered the little girl's (Myrtle) body. Then entering his own room he drew a sheet over Elsie's body as it lay on the bed, and standing beside her, shot himself dead.

When Mrs. Moschner came home she missed the sound of the children's voices. Noticing the overturned furniture, she rushed upstairs to her husband's room and found his body and Elsie's. She fell in a faint. When she recovered she ran shrieking out of the house to call her neighbors.

Moschner, the police learned, had bought his revolver that morning. Up to a short time ago he had been a tuberculosis patient at the State Hospital at Rutland. Before that he had been employed as a baker for twenty-three years. When his health broke down he bought a delivery wagon and delivered bake-house goods. When he grew too weak for this work his wife took up the work. Brooding over his poor health, the police think, caused him to become insane.