DASTARDLY DADS FROM THE ARCHIVES (New York, New York - 1913)

I know that parenting standards were somewhat different in 1913, but did father ALEXANDER SPEAR really think that telling his 12-year-old son how he was going cut up the boy's mother, using an apple to demonstrate, was a fine fatherly thing to do? Especially when the mother turns up slashed to death later on?

Just goes to show that psycho dads are nothing new.

This is also an interesting first-person account from an immigrant Russian-American boy, who had arrived in the U.S. but five years before in the company of this father. The mother didn't immigrate till 10 months before her murder. Apparently the father was peeved that the mother had agreed to live with him only on the condition that he work regularly. The murder occurred right after the father had quit his job.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E07E1DF1730E233A2575AC1A9659C946296D6CF

From the archives of the New York Times, March 19, 1913.

TELLS HOW FATHER REHEARSED MURDER

Spear Cut Up Apple to Show How He Would Slay Wife, Young Son Testifies.

NEIGHBOR HEARD HER SCREAM

Looked Through Keyhole, Parama Says, and Saw Wife and Husband Struggling Together.

Mrs. Alexander Spear of 247 Eldridge Street was murdered on Feb. 6 by someone who slashed her again and again with a knife, and yesterday before Justice Seabury in the Criminal Branch of the Supreme Court, where the husband is on trial for murder, twelve-year-old Frank Spear, the woman's son, told how his father had threatened to murder the mother. The boy knew none of the details of the murder, but in a piping voice he testified that his father had once called him to his mother's bedside when Mrs. Spear was ill.

"Papa came in with an apple," said the boy, "and sitting beside mamma's bed, called me to his side, and, taking out his knife, began to cut the apple. 'This is how I am going to cut mamma's head,' said he, and then he cut lines in the skin of the apple and said, 'This is how I'm going to cut her throat.' Then he peeled the apple and said, 'This is how I am going to skin mamma's hands.' I cried, and my aunt came and took me away, and the next I knew mamma was dead and papa was in prison."

Michael Parama, a neighbor, told how he had heard Mrs. Spear scream, and had looked through the keyhole of the door of the Spear flat and had seen Spear and his wife struggling together.

The trial will be continued to-day. The boy made an unusual witness. When he was asked if he knew the meaning of an oath he said:

"I swear to tell the truth, and if I don't tell it why then I will surely be punished by God, and I may be sent to prison."

The boy said that he came to this city with his father from Russia about five years ago, and that his mother came here ten months ago. From the child's testimony, the woman knew, apparently, that her husband was disinclined to steady work, and agreed to live with him only on condition that he would work regularly. The murder came when Spear had quit work.