DASTARDLY DADS FROM THE ARCHIVES (Brooklyn, New York - 1901)

Just one archive story today.

You get the sense that there is a lot of back story with dad CHARLES FREEDMAN that is not being told. Just decided on a whim one night to bash in the brains of his two daughter, ages 3 and 16 months? And then try to kill his wife for an encore? All in a "fit of temporary insanity"? Don't think so.

From the New York Times, March 18, 1901

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B02E1D81330E132A2575BC1A9659C946097D6CF&scp=1&sq=man+attempts+to+kill+his+family&st=p

MAN ATTEMPTS TO KILL HIS FAMILY

Brains His Baby and Mortally Injures Another Child.

Struck His Wife in the Head with a Bottle, but Was Overpowered by Her Brother.

Charles Freedman, a young married man, living at 860 Broadway, Williamsburg, in what is supposed to have been a fit of temporary insanity, attempted to murder his family last night. The victims in the case, only one of whom is dead, were his wife, Ellen, his three-year-old daughter Ellen, and a baby girl, Jessie, the last-named of whom was brained and instantly killed.

The wife succeeded in saving her life with the aid of her brother, Jacob Groes, but the little girl, Ellen, though not dead at an early hour this morning, was said to be in a dying condition at St. Catherine's hospital suffering from a fractured skull.

Freedman, who was occupying a room with his brother-in-law Groes, retired about 10 o'clock, supposedly for the night. Shortly after midnight, he got up and went into his wife's room, where she was sleeping with his two little girls, the youngest of whom, Jessie, was only sixteen months old. He was armed with a bronze clock of fancy shape and a long bottle. He, the father, first seized the infant from its mother, and before she could cry out or go to the rescue he had dealt her a fatal blow on the head, braining her and killing her instantly.

Next he attacked the second child and hit her with a terrific force on the skull, fracturing it, as a result of which her life is despaired of. By this time Mrs. Freedman had gotten out of bed and was grappling with her frenzied husband who was trying to complete his night's work of murder by killing her.

She screamed at the top of her voice and her brother, sleeping up stairs, hearing her screams, ran down into the room in time to save her life after a hard struggle with the murderous husband. After Freedman was overpowered the police of the Vernon Avenue Station were summoned and the murderer taken in custody.

An ambulance call was sent to St. Catherine's Hospital, to which institution the eldest of the girls was taken. Mrs. Freedman has a bad gash in her head where she had been struck wit the bottle, but was not seriously injured.

The mother when she realized what had occurred, and that her baby was dead and the other daughter mortally hurt, was frantic in her grief.

Friends tried to comfort her, but the terrible nature of her affliction made their efforts at consoling her unavailing.